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1. Kasabian – Club Foot – I still don’t think anybody has created better music for high-speed, late-night, urban driving, but I’d love to be proven wrong!
2. Broken Social Scene – Lover’s Spit – This is better for nice and easy, chilled-out, rural driving. Either right at sunset, or anytime after 2 AM. Take your pick!
3. Andy Votel (w/ Jane Weaver) - Girl on a GoPed – More chillout music for quiet nights and quiet stars (so to speak). Are you noticing a theme?
4. Bob Dylan – Time Passes Slowly – I’m always telling people that “New Morning” is the best Dylan album but nobody believes me. In fact, I’m not even sure I believe myself!
5. Beachwood Sparks – Canyon Ride – I sort of prefer the later Beachwood Sparks records, but this is what was in the car, so it’s what I listened to in there, dammit!
6. Cracker & Leftover Salmon – Eurotrash Girl – Whenever I play this album for people they’re like, “WTF is that?” and/or “Can you give me a copy?”
7. R.E.M. – The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite – The copy of this album (“Automatic For The People”) that I found absolutely astounds me. I’m pretty sure it’s the very first CD I *ever* bought, and yet (unlike 90% of my other CDs) it’s completely unscratched! Just to give you some perspective on how old I am, when I bought this album (from Tower Records) it came in a frickin’ LONGBOX!
8. Velvet Underground – Rock and Roll – For some reason, this one *always* came on right as I was going through the tollbooth on the Richmond – San Rafael bridge.
9. Soundgarden – Superunknown – Well you can’t always drive at night, so it’s important to have some more energetic options too.
10. Fred Thomas – Wet as a Cloud – This album is perhaps *too* energetic in that it makes me want to drive faster than I should which occasionally got me into trouble. But let’s not dwell on the past!
11. Sloan – Deeper Than Beauty – This whole record (“Twice Removed”) is incredible. Penpals, I Hate My Generation, Coax Me, etc., etc… Even so, it’s not hard to single out the best track.
12. Mona Baptiste – Calypso Blues – This is from “London is the Place For Me, Vol. 2″ and apparently was written by Nat “King” Cole? In any case, I love the lines “Me pocket full of empty” and “Pads is where, the girl she ain’t.”
13. Scott Walker – Funeral Tango – I think one of the things I’ll miss most about not having a car is that I won’t have any place to belt out all my favorite Scott Walker tunes without feeling just a bit self-conscious. The best part of this one is the laughing between verses!

In observance of St. Valentine’s Day, Google Reader & I just wanted to share these two stories about love & velocity:

1. Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan’s Ultimate Mix Tape Of The Human Experience
2. The Calculus of Saying “I Love You”

Bonus linkage: Here are some historical Valentine’s cards from the University of Iowa Digital Library Services department. I particularly enjoyed the 1907 rebus card (see above) although I think maybe the (heart) and (pants) symbols should switch places? In any case, make sure you click through to the link to check out some other pansy cards and a recipe for pink pie!

(See also: “Pink Pie” at the “blog” of “unnecessary” quotation marks)

UPDATE: Oops, almost forgot to include perhaps the greatest Valentine of all… I mean, how can you not love a Swear Bear? =D

Check out the track list:

Bonus Fun: Download the individual MP3s as a ZIP file

Anyway, hope you enjoy the mix! I probably could have edited it down a bit, but since it’s not like this will ever have to fit on a CD (or any other kind of physical media) that seems kinda passé. Now go out and see some live music, OK?! Cheers & happy 2010!

1. Lightning Seeds – You Showed Me
2. Lovage – Everyone Has a Summer
3. Air – Le Soleil Est Près De Moi
4. Pavement – You Are a Light
5. Tricky – Black Coffee
6. Dot Allison – Alpha Female
7. Blur – Optigan 1
8. Mystic Chords of Memory – Open End
9. Bono & Daniel Lanois – Falling At Your Feet
10. James – Vervaceous

Download the individual MP3s as a ZIP file.

Over the last several weeks, Kringle’s detractors in the press have been hounding the “Jolly Old Elf” for details on how he plans to turn a profit by manufacturing and giving away over $30 billion in merchandise this December, a prospect which is only made more difficult by the sheer logistical nightmare of having to service over 7000 homes per second in order to meet delivery targets.

The xmas.hup East Palo Alto Distribution Center

The bullish Kringle remained cautiously optimistic however, his eyes twinkling merrily as he explained how his proprietary behavioral-targeting software would prioritize requests from “good” users, and why “crowd-sourcing” much of his work to parents and other charitable organizations was an innovative solution to a thorny distribution problem.

“In a lot of ways, we’re simply evolving from a free to ‘freemium’ business model,” said Kringle, during an impromptu meeting with bloggers on Monday. “And as long as people continue to find some kind of value in the xmas.hup brand, then we expect to see more and more users becoming active participants and content creators within our community.”

In response to cash flow questions, Kringle pointed out that his organization provides a variety of lucrative consulting services to Fortune 500 businesses, as well as being the beneficiary of undisclosed millions in licensing fees from these same companies.

While leading guests through one of his dozens of global distribution warehouses, the red-suited CEO stopped to point out how the QR codes printed on each shipping container would be scanned by powerful light-emitting diodes implanted in the noses of his reindeer.

“It’s this attention to optimizing our process that allows us to accomplish in just one night what might take other organizations a week or more!” he said (in a not-so-subtle dig at one of his main competitors, hannu.ca).

So all of this is just to give you some background on the next few links I’m going to post. Because another of my “standard” references has to do with somebody rambling on in a stream of consciousness that doesn’t appear to be going anywhere and their language becomes more confused and ornate with each passing moment until it seems like a tidal wave of ridiculousness might crash over their heads and drag the entire monologue back out into the sea of irrelevance, and that reference is from a classic episode of Mr. Show, in which a famed “travelist” recounts his experience on safari in search of the African lion. Here’s a quote:

The lion moves! Each muscle so vast it moves like a school of fish moving together with one mind and all the hairs on the tip of your penis spring forth! And the long hank of unbraided hair tickles the scrotum at the base of your knee. In your hunter’s crouch you feel the nipples on your ass become erect….

You really need to watch the video in order to appreciate the crazy, ranting nature of his diatribe though. So here it is:

Ok, so now with *all* that explanation out of the way, I just want to share with you this link to a web page that I came across today, that attempts to explain why Evangelion is being re-released to theatres:

Evangelion 1.01: You Are (Not) Alone

Anyway, if you click on the “What are we attempting to create by doing this once more?” link, you’ll be treated to a multi-page essay that ultimately boils down to “BECAUSE WE WANT YUOR MONEYS” that I personally find pretty  hilarious. Here’s a (brief!) excerpt:

In this closed, stagnant modern era, I think what is important is not to have a technical discussion, but to state one’s aspirations. The teens and tweens are supposed to be the primary demographic supporting animation, but as they lose interest, I feel that there needs to be a work of animation targeted towards them. It is so that we may be free of the past, refrain from taking advantage of the present, and aim for a future with progress.

OK… This concludes my strange and pointless journey up my own ass. Thanks for stopping by!

A couple months ago I started reading this series of posts called “The Money Diaries” on the blog I WIll Teach You To Be Rich. The series follows a different reader of the blog every few weeks, and asks them to document all of their financial transactions and decision-making for a seven day period. It’s a pretty interesting window into what’s usually a private matter, and in many cases good for a few laughs as well. I was particularly amused by the guy who talked about getting high and buying cell-phone accessories, for instance.

Anyway, after reading that for a while, I discovered that it was based on *another* blog series, New York Magazine’s “Sex Diaries” which follows the exact same pattern except that diarists are asked to detail all of their sexual & romantic interactions for a week. Here you’ll read about such characters as “The Semi-Retired Engineer Who Has Discovered Nudism, Tantra, and Internet Porn” and “The Ex-Banker Living on Alcohol, Hookups, and Unemployment“.

Recently NY Mag published a “critical (but highly sympathetic)” analysis of the past few years of these diaries, which attempts to identify some common threads and shared experiences among the diarists. These are presented as a series of “anxieties” (the anxiety of making the wrong choice, the anxiety of appearing delusional, etc.) and the role of technology (particularly the cell phone) in catering to and/or creating these anxieties is also examined in some detail. (Which, in case you’re wondering, is why this post begins with an awesome portrait of Yoshiaki Zumino, the great spirit of cellular phones and other cordless devices, from Episode 3 of “Tenchi in Tokyo”, who derives his power from the collective angst and misery of relationships ruined by cell phones. BTW, it’s actually a really funny episode, you should check it out!)

Well anyway, now you’ve got plenty of stuff to read (and watch) on this Sunday afternoon. Enjoy!

Watch “Us Now” on Vimeo

I actually became aware of it while browsing the “movies” section on mininova the other day, where it was (at the time, anyway) ranked #1 in terms of concurrent downloads, outpacing Hollywood blockbusters like Surrogates, Zombieland, Up, Star Trek and etc. Which is apropos since, to quote the film itself:

We are living through what economists have called an positive supply side shock to the amount of freedom in the world. More people can say more things to more people than ever in history and that is still growing enormously.

And while it’s unclear exactly what effect that “shock” is going to have on the film and music and publishing industries (not to mention government and society at-large) it’s definitely something worth spending a few moments to consider. Because we’ve been faced with similar examples of systemic change throughout our history, and in many cases failed to realize the opportunities afforded by these changes, ceding victory to the forces of inertia and tradition. Not to say that’s necessarily a bad thing, but consider the example of the industrial revolution, in which global productivity increased by several orders of magnitude, presenting humanity with the chance to completely reconsider the relationship between work and leisure. But instead of taking this opportunity to redistribute leisure equitably among all workers, our adherence to a traditional morality that praises the “virtue” of hard work has created a situation in which many are overworked and an increasing number are unemployed while government and corporate entities continue to enrich themselves on the surplus of industrial output.

But it didn’t need to be this way. Bertrand Russell, writing “In Praise of Idleness” in 1932 proposed the following:

In a world where no one is compelled to work more than four hours a day, every person possessed of scientific curiosity will be able to indulge it, and every painter will be able to paint without starving, however excellent his pictures may be. Young writers will not be obliged to draw attention to themselves by sensational pot-boilers, with a view to acquiring the economic independence needed for monumental works, for which, when the time at last comes, they will have lost the taste and the capacity. Men who, in their professional work, have become interested in some phase of economics or government, will be able to develop their ideas without the academic detachment that makes the work of university economists often seem lacking in reality. Medical men will have time to learn about the progress of medicine, teachers will not be exasperatedly struggling to teach by routine methods things which they learnt in their youth, which may, in the interval, have been proved to be untrue.

Above all, there will be happiness and joy of life, instead of frayed nerves, weariness, and dyspepsia. The work exacted will be enough to make leisure delightful, but not enough to produce exhaustion. Since men will not be tired in their spare time, they will not demand only such amusements as are passive and vapid. At least one per cent will probably devote the time not spent in professional work to pursuits of some public importance, and, since they will not depend upon these pursuits for their livelihood, their originality will be unhampered, and there will be no need to conform to the standards set by elderly pundits. But it is not only in these exceptional cases that the advantages of leisure will appear. Ordinary men and women, having the opportunity of a happy life, will become more kindly and less persecuting and less inclined to view others with suspicion. The taste for war will die out, partly for this reason, and partly because it will involve long and severe work for all. Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security for all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for the others. Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines; in this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish for ever.

So yeah. Maybe whatever revolution it is that’s going on right now is another chance to stop being foolish. To dismantle some of the unidirectional, broadcast models of “communication” that have helped to create the neurotic, image-obsessed society we live in, and to experiment with some new means of expression.

Or maybe, as David Berman said about MDMA, it will only serve as a new kind of opiate for the “strangely passive kids who grew up in the child protectorate of the U.S. eighties and nineties [and] came of age, craving depersonalization. Apparently it helps them dance. They’re a very attractive lot. Have you seen them dance?”

Additional Reading:

Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software (2001) Steven B. Johnson

Everything is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder (2007) David Weinberger