CANTWELL TO OPPOSE ALITO

In the studio, live on tape......

This weekend AP kicked it lost-style in Track and Field Studios with Nick Petersen, putting the finishing overdo's on the epic "Teenage Horses". Special guests included Crowmeat Bob, the Great Descriptah, Ben Cohen (and parents), Mark Lebetkin (who was spared the full-band direction on what and how to play this time), and Mike Walters.






Here's the Audubon Park Symphonic Players layin' down the first movement of the AP jam "Burn Construction in 3 parts".







Two generations of Cohen discuss whether or not Robert truly burned us all with that last percussion overdub involving a djembe ensemble from Ghana.







David and Finn have the last laugh as Matt and Robert's faces melt from the scorching bass solo at the end of AP's cover of "Muskrat Love".












Ben wonders if too much really is never enough.

TYPEE: "RB and I are Just Friends!"

The Nein at Wetlands Dance Hall 1-20-06

Overheard in Durham--Part IV

4:10 pm
Men's room in the Languages Building of Duke University.
Dude on cell phone:

DUDE: No.
(some inaudible question on the other side of the conversation)
DUDE: No.
(more inaudible stuff)
DUDE: Oh, I was just wondering if you had any deals going on right now. For pizzas.
(a question is posed to DUDE)
DUDE: 80.
(a much louder question, which I think was "Pizzas?")
DUDE: Yes.
(an explanation of the deals at hand ensues)
DUDE: do they all have to be large?

Best Web Cam Ever

A coffee machine in the offices of Der Spiegel

Mewling Amongst the Dewy Clouds of Doom

Continuing on 'ric's theme from yesterday about the disturbing nature of American Culture, Lifestyle and Business: K-Fed's Ur Jam PopoZao. Enjoy. This man has a future--as long as time continues, he has a future.

Dooooddddd.

As part of Tropic of Food's continuing Bidness Tuesday coverage, check out Salon.com's uber-creepy portrait of Abercrombie and Fitch's CEO Mike Jeffries.

"In the latest episode, last fall a group of high school girls from Allegheny County, Penn., made the rounds of television talk shows to protest the company's "offensive" T-shirts. Of particular concern were shirts that read "Who Needs a Brain When You Have These?" "Gentlemen Prefer Tig Ol' Bitties" and "Do I Make You Look Fat?" "

Rock Show Tonight!!!!

Dieter Zetsche, Chairman of DaimlerChrysler AG

Hey y'all,

DaimlerChrysler (can I get a hyphen?) announced today that it would cut 6,000 white-collar jobs worldwide, amounting to 20 percent of administrative positions. The cuts will be made in such areas as accounting, auditing, personnel, percussion and strategic planning. These sort of administrative cuts usually begin with the largest corporations and are later followed by smaller companies. So come out tonight as two local bands, clearly bloated with extraneous members, Audubon Park and En Garde, play with a streamlined Omaha firm, Criteria at the Local 506.

Enough with the cuteness, witness the newest weapon in Matt Kalb's arsenal:

"20th Anniversary Dragon 2005 Double Neck Collector's GuitarEvery great violin ever made has been documented in the Hill Catalog. So the likelihood of finding a Stradivarius in the attic isn't going to happen. In future generations, the rare family heirloom that will appreciate in value to mythic proportions will be the PRS 20th Anniversary Dragon 2005. (Ever seen a double neck violin? We think not.) But like any great instrument destined to become an obsession for collectors, they are meant to be played. In fact, rare violins lose their value when they sit in vaults. The instrument must be played to keep the wood vibrating properly. So before you hide your Dragon 2005 in a closet as an investment, or an heirloom to pass on to your children, remember that this guitar was made to be played. "

Oh! Because that dog was freaking me OUT! Let me introduce: Cute Overload!

This makes me sleepy.

Can this be real?

It is real. It is Sam. It is, perhaps unfortunately, dead.

Footnote

Here is how David Foster Wallace is handling the footnotes on the audiobook of Consider the Lobster (via Backwards City).

Now It's Dark

Happy Birthday to David Lynch. INLAND EMPIRE gets release this year. I hope.

Life of Newman

It's no secret that one of the Tropic of Food's favorite people is Clint H. Newman. He is an esteemed friend from the early days of youth, somewhat a music mentor to large portions of AP and generally the definition of Kentucky Gentleman. In additon to his role as one of the creators of the semi-non-existant (except when it appears to play the best show since the last time the Warmer Milks played) Nation Sack, he is the drummer in Slow Dazzle and has of late come to play lead guitar in Mendoza Line. He also plays lead guitar in Phonovox. If you live in the NYC area, please go see one of these excellent outlets for a true National treasure.

Their Eyes Were Watching God. Or something. Creeeepy.

Photo by Lauren Carter

You Are Going to Be Busy

REASON ONE! Friday: The Nein w/Fin Fang Foom and Bringerer at The Wetlands. The Independent says:

The Nein, Fin Fang Foom, Bringerer
Wetlands
Casey Burns came to Chapel Hill in 1993 on a Morehead Scholarship, and--in the last 12 years--he's become a vital part of the local rock scene, managing the Cat's Cradle for seven years and designing some 1,500 concert posters. Remember the Southern Culture poster with a skull wearing a "Women Love Me/ Fish Fear Me!" cap? The praying-hands Polvo show? Both Casey. He's also designed Independent covers and album art for folks from Jon Wurster and Tom Scharpling to his current band The Nein. This will be Casey's farewell show with The Nein--who play swagger-borne, noise-driven angular indie rock--as he will move to Portland, Ore., later this year to be with his wife. Fittingly, gig-art mentor Rob Liberti opens with his new band Bringerer; Fin Fang Foom and DJ Viva fill the bill. $6/10 p.m.

REASON TWO! Sunday the 22nd: Listen to WXYC 89.3 fm at 8pm and hear an interview with one or all of the following bands (possibly): Erie Choir, Schooner, The Sames and Summer Set. Those four have a split cd coming out next week called "3x4." They will be playing at the aforementioned Wetlands.

REASON THREE! Tuesday the 23rd: Criteria w/Audubon Park and En Garde. Again, let's go to the Indy:

Criteria, Audubon Park
Local 506
Like a bright pink natural disaster, Audobon Park storms through broken bits of song, leaving a disheveled path of yo-yo pop and candy wrapper rock in its wake. The diary-page guitar theatrics of Ex-White Octave unit Criteria ain't nearly as cute as a tornado dressed in a My Little Pony onesie, but the band heaves like a two-headed emo monster, delivering guitar-centric heaviness with a heart. $8/9:30 p.m.

Don't try Googling "bright pink natural disaster," it's nasty.

Bored now???: see this interesting report from a David Foster Wallace signing from the lit-blog Edward Champion's Return of the Reluctant. I wonder if he is a relative of failed presidential candidate Joe Champion? In any case, the blog is part of a group of readers/writers who are working their way through the complete works of William T. Vollmann. (Not to WTV Reading Group: You need Word Nerdy's help. She'd finish the unabridged Rising Up, Rising Down on the bus.) I have only read some of his short stories, from the Rainbow Stories, and am interested in getting into him, but I'll be damned if I know where to start. And Steve Erickson too. Where to begin? I want to start off on the right foot with both and am frozen. Help is helpful. Imagine reading Timbuktu before you read New York Trilogy. You wouldn't read New York Trilogy (though may be it is worse to read NYT first and spend the rest of your life looking for a second NYT. Maybe George Lucas can help.)

Microsoft Turd

Before I proceed, I must explain that I had to email this entire process to myself just so I would remember to PUT IT ON THE BLOG. Cause I had been BLOGGIN' IT ON THE PUT, you know....

Let me hit y'all with some text pulled from recent SPAM I been receivificatin'. It's pure random computer haikus, fools. Check the syence:

Sent at 4:41am on "Yesterday":
a stomach on seventeen may ukrainian on sublimate ! provoke , bootstrapping a recumbent see chastise be anatomic see selenate not vertical may photolytic but kingsley see we're Or maybe not

Sent at 11:13pm on Jan 15:
maximiser the exceeding and fairways pyorrhoea's the corroboratory andguimpe ! boudicca it blink a nevers ,gratefully localisations tinniest draughtiness a control's scapegoat repress and abbess it's dwellers itseedlike it whare , Lilliputianize but auxinic the regularly or shipborne but homophobes it twitchily orcranko and hours it sustained a incapably a , doves appellatively trademark's millepede gambolling the thimblerig gears discreditable submodules !it's xerosere it clubfooted in

my favorite phrases out of this:
--bootstrapping a recumbent
--a stomach on seventeen may ukrainian on sublimate !
--trademark's millepede gambolling the thimblerig gears

But keep in mind, this text is all hidden underneath giant html ads for Viagra or something called "UNIVERSITY DIPLOMA", which seems kind of like the same thing as "COMPUTER."

oh, if only i could insert some nifty link-hidden-within-text-and-indicated-by-blueish-color-and-underlining.

Blowing Up

Recent Press Coverage of Audubon Park Activities:

The Mountain Times (online) calls "Ghettos of the Sun" (from the new Compulation Volume II) an "astounding progressive rock masterpiece." Thanks!

The Independent calls the self-same song "invasive." Where's my scalpel?

Has the world gone MAD? Who knows. One thing I can tell you, and this is not a secret is that my knee hurts from sitting like this for so long.

I am listening to the Pandora radio station and it just played Television and told me the reason it was playing was becuase I liked extensive vamping, repetivitve melodic phrases and electric guitar riffs. I guess they got that one right. Also: who knew that the singer from James and Angelo Badalamenti recorded and album together? Not me.

DFW and the Island of Missed Diddles

Here is a new article on DFW. His office is in Crookshank hall. Here he is reading. He is very funny.

I finished IJ after New Years (Ms. Wrdnrdy finished quite a few weeks ago, despite the fact that she started after RB and I). It was pretty damn great. Now I am reading (as is Ms. Wrdnrdy, I mean, she's already finished) Oblivion, which RB, who is finishing IJ now, has already read.

But it is long, isn't it?

Yes, it is, and to say "But it is worth the length" in some way indicates that the length is a draw back, which it isn't. You need what he gives you, and yes when I finished, I was sad it was over and went back and read the first part again (which is necessary anyway) and plan to re-read parts over the next few months, at my leisure, which of course I have lots of.

Are there no draw backs to the length, which seems to me, as someone who hasn't read it, to the novel's definich characteristic?

Yes, there are some, at least on a personal level for me. It foreced me to chose between my natural impatience with a book and my desire to read slowly and closely. Impatience won, hence the need for a re-read. But this was just me and may not apply to others.

So what makes it so great?

I would compare, though not necessarily in writing style, to Nabokov, which is to say that though DFW does not read like VN, they share a deeper bond. The ability to have it all as a writer: unique language, invention, experimental structure, but also deeply drawn characters that you really start to love on a very personal level. It seems often when a writer is a stylist or experimenter they lose out on the personal and when they are great with the personal and nothing else, they are boring. To me. But IJ managed, like Pnin or Lolita, to be both exciting intellectually and emotionally. This is a sad book, a deeply sad book, a deeply moving book.

I recommend it whole-heartedly.

EUROTARD

Finn's got 'Overheard in Durham.'

Well, I've got 'Overseen in Raleigh.'

Tropic of Food has obviously been on the DL for the past few weeks: partly from holiday travel and fun, party because none of us have had to be bored at work; but there is stuff on the horizon. Let's gaze at it a moment:

JANUARY 24th

CRITERIA
AUDUBON PARK
EN GARDE

at the Local 506; 9:30pm. All we can divulge is there will be surupy awesomeness.

In addition, January 26-29 will see the AP return to the studio with the NP to finish the TH.