Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Overseen in Durham--Volume 1
Normally our professors don't act like this, but this guy, the chair of the Economics department here at Duke, had to win a bet he made with the rest of the Econ professors (seen in the background) that he could make it come out his nose.
Monday, February 13, 2006
R.I.P. James Yancey, aka J Dilla, aka Jay Dee
We here at Tropic of Food (at least those who play bass in Audubon Park), mourn the extremely tragic passing of Jay Dee, hip-hop producer extraordinaire. He died last week at 32 due to complications involving a blood disease. Jay Dee's production credits are stellar:--D'Angelo's "Voodoo"
--The Pharcyde's "Labcabincalifornia"
--De La Soul's "The Grind Date"
--the Jaylib project with Madlib
--Slum Village
Always representing his hometown of Detroit, Jay Dee kept alive the notion that 60s and 70s soul was the backbone of hip-hop production. I expect that he is rollin' a very large blunt in heaven, surrounded by crates of dusty records that he could never find on earth. .......
This is Truth.
From: Park Place
Date: Feb 12, 2006 10:47 PM
Subject: Your music rocks!
Your music rocks!
Howdy! I have to tell you that I really dig your music because I'm a talent scout and if you call my company they will give me commssion for every show they book you. You sound easy to book.
Park Place Entertainment LLC is a booking and promotional agency. They do lots of events and feature rock and hip-hop artists as well as most other genres. I'm sure you'll be received well. They have tons of live music venues all over the place.
If you want to check 'em out. Their website is www.ParkPlaceE.com.
To speak with an agent call toll free (888) 717-0372.
Tell them Maria Carter (the talent scout) sent you.
Call soon while the roster is still open because they only have room for a few more bands on their roster.
Good Luck,
Maria
Date: Feb 12, 2006 10:47 PM
Subject: Your music rocks!
Your music rocks!
Howdy! I have to tell you that I really dig your music because I'm a talent scout and if you call my company they will give me commssion for every show they book you. You sound easy to book.
Park Place Entertainment LLC is a booking and promotional agency. They do lots of events and feature rock and hip-hop artists as well as most other genres. I'm sure you'll be received well. They have tons of live music venues all over the place.
If you want to check 'em out. Their website is www.ParkPlaceE.com.
To speak with an agent call toll free (888) 717-0372.
Tell them Maria Carter (the talent scout) sent you.
Call soon while the roster is still open because they only have room for a few more bands on their roster.
Good Luck,
Maria
Friday, February 10, 2006
Tropic of Truth
Nahm beat me to the punch on (re)instituting some intellection at the Tropic of Food. Our Frey coincidence went further than (1) speakin’ out about values of truth regarding the Frey scandal, and (2) an indulgence for wikipedic hypertextual cross-referencing. Also, I promise, I meant to post my thoughts to the blog a couple weeks ago, but instead I wimped-out and slapped the whole thing at the end of a promotional mass-email; not only that, but presented it in such a way that no one but me would get my meaning (as if anyone clicks on all the links, as if anyone then reads them) – for fun.
None of which is to accuse Nahm of ‘biting’ – amazed we were so unwittingly on the same page – plus, our chosen subjects were not identical: his was about the life of the imagination and mine was about concern over the survival of historical veracity (if such a thing ever existed, blah blah blah).
All of which is a self-congratulating preamble to the fiction-v.-truth hoax du jour. Last night the “Colbert Report” mocked the American Association of Petroleum Geologists for awarding Michael Crichton’s recent novel, State of Fear, their national *journalism* award. In his novel, Crichton “…dismisses global warming as a largely imaginary threat embraced by malignant scientists for their own ends.” (NY Times) The Times’ article is good, fun truth, so I’ll paste it at the bottom in case the link doesn’t work for non-NYtimes-members – basically some pot v. kettle re blackness.
Now, what I find lacking in David’s (albeit brief) rant on Frey-hating is specifically addressing the matter of intention w/r/t a good, healthy hoax. Maybe Frey was pushed by the publisher to change his novel into a memoir in order to sell more copies (because apparently, bad memoirs sell better’n bad novels). Anyway, there’s an important and obvious difference between Kent Johnson faking some non-existent Japanese poetry for postmodern effect and James Frey fibbing here and there to make his memoir more saleable.
But anyway, to keep things off-point, back to global warming. Always wondered what the goal(s) of those supposedly malignant scientists' Global Warming Hoax would be, googled it, and found this. This is just one of many items, but let’s run with it. Proponents of Global Warming want to “…control the world economies, dictate development, and redistribute the world's wealth” and the KYOTO treaty was (gasp) “really about redistribution of wealth, from America to the rest of the world.” I wonder if that’s what Crichton’s on too. Point being that this’d qualify as another hoax that could not be judged as at least healthy for our imagination/intellect, even if destructive to a purist's sense of veracity. And another one being Holocaust Revisionism. These are all too easy targets.
[Too bloggy?]
rbrt
--------------------------------------
Truth? Fiction? Journalism? Award Goes to . . .
By CORNELIA DEAN
Published: February 9, 2006
Journalists like to think of themselves as presenting as accurate a picture as they can of the real world.
The American Association of Petroleum Geologists takes a broader view. It is presenting its annual journalism award this year to Michael Crichton, the science fiction writer whose latest book, "State of Fear," dismisses global warming as a largely imaginary threat embraced by malignant scientists for their own ends.
"It is fiction," conceded Larry Nation, communications director for the association. "But it has the absolute ring of truth."
That is not the way leading climate scientists see it. When the book was published in 2004, climate experts condemned it as dangerously divorced from reality. Most of these scientists believe human activity, chiefly the burning of fossil fuels, is changing the atmosphere's chemistry in ways that threaten unpredictable, potentially damaging effects.
The book is "demonstrably garbage," Stephen H. Schneider, a Stanford climatologist, said in an interview yesterday. Petroleum geologists may like it, he said, but only because "they are ideologically connected to their product, which fills up the gas tanks of Hummers."
Daniel P. Schrag, a geochemist who directs the Harvard University Center for the Environment, called the award "a total embarrassment" that he said "reflects the politics of the oil industry and a lack of professionalism" on the association's part.
As for the book, he added, "I think it is unfortunate when somebody who has the audience that Crichton has shows such profound ignorance."
The book has high-profile admirers, though. One is Senator James M. Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who is chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, who calls global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."
Mr. Nation said there had been "some pushback" on the award from association members who had written to association publications to protest it. "Whenever you get to the global warming issue you have legitimate scientists on both sides of the issue, as we do in our own membership," he said.
But he praised Mr. Crichton as "a high-profile writer" who had brought attention to the topic "to really create some good." He said readers would "have a very good informational read" about science and sometimes the way science is made."
None of which is to accuse Nahm of ‘biting’ – amazed we were so unwittingly on the same page – plus, our chosen subjects were not identical: his was about the life of the imagination and mine was about concern over the survival of historical veracity (if such a thing ever existed, blah blah blah).
All of which is a self-congratulating preamble to the fiction-v.-truth hoax du jour. Last night the “Colbert Report” mocked the American Association of Petroleum Geologists for awarding Michael Crichton’s recent novel, State of Fear, their national *journalism* award. In his novel, Crichton “…dismisses global warming as a largely imaginary threat embraced by malignant scientists for their own ends.” (NY Times) The Times’ article is good, fun truth, so I’ll paste it at the bottom in case the link doesn’t work for non-NYtimes-members – basically some pot v. kettle re blackness.
Now, what I find lacking in David’s (albeit brief) rant on Frey-hating is specifically addressing the matter of intention w/r/t a good, healthy hoax. Maybe Frey was pushed by the publisher to change his novel into a memoir in order to sell more copies (because apparently, bad memoirs sell better’n bad novels). Anyway, there’s an important and obvious difference between Kent Johnson faking some non-existent Japanese poetry for postmodern effect and James Frey fibbing here and there to make his memoir more saleable.
But anyway, to keep things off-point, back to global warming. Always wondered what the goal(s) of those supposedly malignant scientists' Global Warming Hoax would be, googled it, and found this. This is just one of many items, but let’s run with it. Proponents of Global Warming want to “…control the world economies, dictate development, and redistribute the world's wealth” and the KYOTO treaty was (gasp) “really about redistribution of wealth, from America to the rest of the world.” I wonder if that’s what Crichton’s on too. Point being that this’d qualify as another hoax that could not be judged as at least healthy for our imagination/intellect, even if destructive to a purist's sense of veracity. And another one being Holocaust Revisionism. These are all too easy targets.
[Too bloggy?]
rbrt
--------------------------------------
Truth? Fiction? Journalism? Award Goes to . . .
By CORNELIA DEAN
Published: February 9, 2006
Journalists like to think of themselves as presenting as accurate a picture as they can of the real world.
The American Association of Petroleum Geologists takes a broader view. It is presenting its annual journalism award this year to Michael Crichton, the science fiction writer whose latest book, "State of Fear," dismisses global warming as a largely imaginary threat embraced by malignant scientists for their own ends.
"It is fiction," conceded Larry Nation, communications director for the association. "But it has the absolute ring of truth."
That is not the way leading climate scientists see it. When the book was published in 2004, climate experts condemned it as dangerously divorced from reality. Most of these scientists believe human activity, chiefly the burning of fossil fuels, is changing the atmosphere's chemistry in ways that threaten unpredictable, potentially damaging effects.
The book is "demonstrably garbage," Stephen H. Schneider, a Stanford climatologist, said in an interview yesterday. Petroleum geologists may like it, he said, but only because "they are ideologically connected to their product, which fills up the gas tanks of Hummers."
Daniel P. Schrag, a geochemist who directs the Harvard University Center for the Environment, called the award "a total embarrassment" that he said "reflects the politics of the oil industry and a lack of professionalism" on the association's part.
As for the book, he added, "I think it is unfortunate when somebody who has the audience that Crichton has shows such profound ignorance."
The book has high-profile admirers, though. One is Senator James M. Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who is chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, who calls global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."
Mr. Nation said there had been "some pushback" on the award from association members who had written to association publications to protest it. "Whenever you get to the global warming issue you have legitimate scientists on both sides of the issue, as we do in our own membership," he said.
But he praised Mr. Crichton as "a high-profile writer" who had brought attention to the topic "to really create some good." He said readers would "have a very good informational read" about science and sometimes the way science is made."
"Dude!"
With all the recent discussion re: Brey and his fictionalized memoirs, here's a guy who figured out a way to have his cake and eat it to. " He says each one is true -- only some names and a few details have been changed to keep him out of trouble with the authorities. " What do you call this? 'Dude-lit'? 'Brah-lit'? I'd never heard about this guy and his 'stories' until I read this, and my already low opinion of humanity just dropped a little lower. Sorry for sharing.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Nuggets:
Reading an interview on perfectsoundforever with Andy Hummel, the bass player for Big Star back in the 70's, I came across a couple of tidbits about that era in rock and roll.
But we wound up at the TGI Friday's on Overton square one Monday night which was "Rock and Roll Night." It was a major hell-raising scene in those days. A DJ would play old 45's and just everyone came and stuffed the place. That was the back cover.
I brought a group into Ardent called "Voice of Cheeze." They were a bunch of kids from Centre College in Kentucky. My little brother went to college there. They were sort of country folksy. I recorded several demos on them. They were great. I still have a lot of tapes of them.
But we wound up at the TGI Friday's on Overton square one Monday night which was "Rock and Roll Night." It was a major hell-raising scene in those days. A DJ would play old 45's and just everyone came and stuffed the place. That was the back cover.
I brought a group into Ardent called "Voice of Cheeze." They were a bunch of kids from Centre College in Kentucky. My little brother went to college there. They were sort of country folksy. I recorded several demos on them. They were great. I still have a lot of tapes of them.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
And the sound of hounds...
I object to the cult of realism; the cult of memoir, of autobiography, and of fact. I object to the lifting of writing to a higher plane only because it is "true." Why are people so obsessed with non-fiction? "Well, it actually happened and that is more interesting than something someone made up." Yes, but every story, no matter how true, is made up. It is changed by the words that are used, the way things are described. Non-fiction can never be truly non-fiction becuase someone had to write it in some way; had to choose between the endless possibilities for telling the story--and that is what it ends up as--a story. Additionally, consider that none of this happened to you. You are reading a book either way. Fiction or Non: in the end they are just the same. Words on a page. I see little difference between the two, except the non-fiction writer got a jump start on the plot. So perhaps this brings me to my claim: non-fiction writers are lazy (Fred B. excepted, I know he just makes all that stuff up. Like anyone has ever climbed a mountain.) You aren't holding up your end of the bargain. I ask you to think up something I've never thought before and express it in a way that I couldn't have expressed myself. That is all that I want. Consider: we cheer Frank Abagnale because he is getting one over on the MAN and we WITH him. We jeer James Frey because he got one over on us and we are AGAINST him. My message: we need to learn to love being fooled.
This isn't to say that Mr. Frey doesn't have to take his lumps. The fraud, when caught, must pay--otherwise fraud isn't fraud anymore--but he does it for us, to protect us from ourselves. Thank you Mr. Frey.
Haven't you read Light While There is Light? Don't you love Araki Yasusada?
Hooray for lies.
TROPIC OF DDOODD.
With Danish comics causing riots around the world, here's another installment of "Tropic of Ddoodd" which we hope offends dozens.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Monday, February 06, 2006
Friday, February 03, 2006
AP Fans Take Note
Once there was a girl named J. Lockard. I didn't know her but I saw her go by one time. She has rented Police Academy 2 for some reason. Now it is overdue. Why, J. Lockard? Why? gob?
Full Lost House
Stephie from Full House was a Meth Addict. Can we pool our tears we shed:
"But two years ago, feeling bored and being unemployed, she says she began experimenting with drugs and got hooked on meth.
After a three-day "lost" weekend, reportedly followed by an intervention staged by her former Full House costars Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, John Stamos and Bob Saget, Sweetin checked herself in to the Promises rehab facility for six weeks of intense treatment."
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
TROPIC OF DDOODD
Greetings readers, today we have the premiere edition of “TROPIC OF DDOODD”, a serial that shares with us the wacky antics of several sure to become beloved characters. You’ve already met some of them, like Mikey Wave with his signature catch phrase “BURN!” One note: in the spirit of collaboration, today’s ‘script’ was written by soliciting Mad Lib suggestions by email from unsuspecting members of our Staff. Thanks. Enjoy
Overheard in Durham--Vol. V
Wednesday, Feb 1
10:45 am
Music History class (1650-1850)
The Professor is explaining the harmonic structure of the Henry Purcell opera "Dido and Aeneas"; Aeneas is a prince of Troy who has wandered from his land into Egypt and fallen in love with Dido, Queen of Carthage:
"And notice that on the word 'lost', there's another dissonant chord, a diminished chord. Aeneas really sounds lost."
10:45 am
Music History class (1650-1850)
The Professor is explaining the harmonic structure of the Henry Purcell opera "Dido and Aeneas"; Aeneas is a prince of Troy who has wandered from his land into Egypt and fallen in love with Dido, Queen of Carthage:
"And notice that on the word 'lost', there's another dissonant chord, a diminished chord. Aeneas really sounds lost."
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