putting the j in jjosh

O.k. so granted, MIA = super over exposure on the internet…

and within the subset of MIA, Paper Planes = even more exposure…

and perhaps within Paper Planes, Paper Planes remixes = even more more exposure…

but these remixes posted below exemplify a certain type of remix that I really love and that you don’t see that much of, namely the type of remix where the remixer takes away the original music and adds a completely new track under the vocal. These all do that, to varying degrees of success…

The DFA remix doesn’t quite get the key right to fit MIA’s vocals, but kind of makes up for it by being so damn funky and cool…why is James Murphy so awesome right now? LCD Soundsystem and DFA can do no wrong, can they?

MIA – Paper Planes (DFA remix)

[audio:/paper_dfa.mp3]

Even though I want the Ad-Rock remix to be great, it doesn’t really work. the instrumental is good, but the two don’t mesh very well. Sort of like the video for Paper Planes with the Beastie Boys in a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo. It’s sort of like, "what’s the point"?

MIA – Paper Planes (Ad-Rock remix)

[audio:/paper_adrock.mp3]

You have to get to this remix by the aptly and R-rated named Holy F*ck (who are they?) to get one that works seamlessly…this track is just fantastic, and while it jettisons the cool and hip hop style of the original, it gets a sort of punk energy that just works somehow…

MIA – Paper Planes (Holy F*ck remix)

[audio:/paper_hot.mp3]

The first two will be available on a MIA remix EP coming out 3/1, but the Holy F*ck one is internet only apparently…although MIA has suppsoedly given it her approval…

So even though I wasn’t a fan of Juno, and thought Thank You For Smoking was almost a good satire, and thought it was ridiculous for Jason Reitman to get an Oscar nomination for directing…I’m kind of digging his short film from 2000 "In God We Trust." It’s so rare to see a good short film that when you get one that’s actually entertaining, it’s kind of cool. This is well done and shows potential for Reitman — it’s ambitious, which I could also say about his two films — though I don’t think he’s really gotten it together yet.

16 minutes long, and fun…perfect lunch break short film…

"In God We Trust" (2000) – dir. Jason Reitman

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For all thems what thinks Steve Earle is just an actor playing that counselor guy on The Wire, here’s a clip of him kicking it on Jools Holland…

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(p.s., the DJ guy behind him has the same kind of CDJ decks that I’m selling…if you buy them from me, you can surely do better than his shameful attempt at 2:30 in)

Yesterday morning I was suddenly hit with the memory that I once wanted to do a doc (or series?) on culture jamming, the artform that has the artist using the culture as the medium for their art. It’s generally making some kind of comment on mass culture, often to do with consumerism, occasionally with art itself. Probably the best-known example (unless "Andre the Giant has a Posse OBEY" counts) is Banksy, whose stencil graffiti is mega-famous now, but I always liked his museum insertions better. Pictured above is a classic that he snuck into the British Museum in 2005; my favorite bit of the story is the fact that the British Museum:

"praised the way his rock was hung and the style of the sign, which was ‘very similar’ to their own design."

He’s also hit New York museums…

What else could count as culture jamming? Well, I think Improv Everywhere would definitely fit in, and I’d love to do a segment on The Amazing Hypnotist, though I guess these days they’re more well-known for the annual No-Pants Subway Ride or the Grand Central Station Freeze or Best Gig Ever, which showed up on the premiere of the tv version of This American Life.

I think Santarchy would fit in as well — without a culture for hundreds of Santas to play against, there wouldn’t be a Santarchy.

There must be more — if I could come up with a strong set of them, it could maybe make an entertaining, Erroll Morris-ish doc a la "Fast, Cheap and Out of Control". Plus it would have the overarching culture jamming theme over it.

So that popped back into my head yesterday — I think because I’m geeked to do more filming after The Snow of Truth — and then today I get this great link to a blog that someone has started within the comments section of a post on Gawker, which is itself a blog. Let me repeat that. Someone has started a blog in the comments section of another blog. Awesome. Does this count as culture jamming?

hey, a new Wax Tailor album came out last April, how about that? I’m gonna check it out and get back to you, but in the meantime, this video is pretty fresh.

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I was thinking of buying an iphone. My old(e) ipod mini just died of critical hard drive failure, and my phone is old(e). I still have a year to go on my Verizon contract, but then I came across this way to get out of your verizon contract if you do it before 3/2/08, so I figured, what the heck, I’ll get an iphone!

But then talking to some people made me think maybe I shouldn’t. And I hate being an early adopter. And I don’t really NEED it, since I’ve got a decent phone, and I’m using my backup 256MB Creative mp3 player (from the days before ipods!!), so you know, I started thinking maybe I shouldn’t…

and then I came across this, and figured, well maybe I’ll just do this instead. This seals the deal.

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It comes from this site, willitblend.com, which seems to be another thing that a whole huge part of the internet already knows about but which I never came across. It’s great watching him blend things. I especially enjoyed the glow sticks and Guitar Hero 3.

Came across this really wild form of animating paper based on the stratacut technique…it seems like it’s been pioneered by Javan Ivey, and this clip is lifted from his website, pretty good stuff. Also he’s in Brooklyn, so there’s that too.

Check it out…strangely beautiful and affecting…

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His website has a good timelapse film of him preparing the animation…18 hours to prepare, compressed into 30 seconds…

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This morning it seems all of Brooklyn was feeling the powerful effects of the white powder…

So after posting that bit about the CERN collider perhaps creating a black hole, I didn’t want to freak you out and let you know that when they start up that huge collider it might also create a rift in space-time and allow time travel to be possible. But hey, it might.

Instead I want to let you know (courtesy joshgranger.com science coorospondent Pat G) that some badass scientist named Scott Funkhouser (yes!) thinks he may have unearthed some kind of new cosmic constant, and it’s 10 to the 122. Nice. Good work, Funkhouser. It comes into play in trying to explain that "dark matter" we keep hearing about, and also:

"the ratio of the mass of the observable Universe to that of the smallest possible ‘quantum’ of mass is about 6×10¹²². And the number of ways in which the particles of the current Universe can be arranged throughout space (a measure of entropy) is 2.5×10¹²²."

According to Funkhouser (preach it, Funkhouser!) “It is unlikely for chance alone to be responsible for generating so many pure numbers from just several fundamental parameters.” In other words, it looks like design! I love it when science gets out in the fringes…

Meanwhile, let’s take a moment to reminisce on another, more classic cosmic number:

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Wizards, robots, math, science, hip-hop — I love this video! It’s by comedy/music duo Hard n Phirm.

They’re also known for their medley of Radiohead songs done in a bluegrass style. Of course they are. It’s called Rodeohead, check it out…according to wikipedia (can we ever believe them?!) Radiohead themselves approved the track…

Hard n Phirm – Rodeohead

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Persepolis – B

Well, having read the comics a few years ago when they came out, and absolutely loving them, and being blown away by the art and story and storytelling techniques she uses, my expectations for the film version were high. Then reading articles about how they animated it, seeing the gorgeous previews, hearing about how it was selected for the NY Film Festival, etc., etc.

And it was pretty good. It’s kind of impossible to be objective about it, because I find I have a bit of the "the book was better" syndrome. Obviously, as with any book to film translation, there was lots in the book that wasn’t in the film. And some of the voices didn’t match the kinds of voices I had imagined while reading the comic. And knowing the story already, I wasn’t able to be amazed by discovering what life in Iran was like.

tell me more!

Definitely Maybe – B+

I read three reviews of this film where they basically said "Hey, you know, romantic comedies are usually so dire that when one comes along that isn’t awful, it makes it seem pretty good!" So I went in with reasonably low expectations. Add in the fact that we saw it in the middle of the day, on a whim, and the showtime just happened to match up with when we were walking by the theater.

Further add in the fact that I have a soft spot for romantic comedies (when done well, which is so rarely).

I really liked this film. It kept sort of subverting my expectations and had a good framing device — he is telling his daughter the story of his romantic past and she (and we) is (are) trying to guess which woman is her mother — which the film used to keep poking self-referential fun at the genre. Much the same way in Scream the characters are very horror-film savvy and keep saying things like "Don’t go off alone! That’s when the killer gets you!" There were parts in this where the daughter would say "But can’t you see?! She’s the friend who wants to be something more!" And by drawing attention to them, it gets to wink at the audience and play with genre conventions at the same time.

tell me more!

Max Raabe

I was at Pasha’s apartment in Brooklyn years ago and I asked him what he was listening to that I should check out. I always respected Pasha’s taste in music, so when he told me to check out Max Raabe, I dutifully did. And discovered this strange, Germany-in-the-20’s cabaret orchestral sound, which is pretty unique.

Also around this time I saw The Comedian Harmonists with my family, and I remember liking it quite a bit, liking the old-timey feeling of the music and harmonies, and there was some great stuff in the film too about how they dealt with the war and so on…

The most interesting (or accessible) of Raabe’s stuff is the record he did called "Super Hits", which features his interpretation of the modern hits of the day. I’ll never forget being at Deep Creek with a bunch of people, DJ’ing in the lazy hours of a winter afternoon, and SK requesting some Britney Spears…so I played the Raabe version of "Oops I did it Again" and we were treated to a stunning dance interpretation of the song by the same SK, who had been an (ahem) exotic dancer…a magic moment to be sure…

I’ve always wanted to put his version of "We Are The Champions" at the end of a mix, but it’s so different from everything else that it always comes too far out of nowhere.

And who suggested that he should cover "King of Bongos"? Genius. (end of mp3 is corrupted for some reason…I’ll try to fix at some point)

Finally I’m putting the Abba cover here too because this morning I went to the dentist and they were playing Abba during my whole check-up. At first I was going to say something snarky to my dentist like "Yuck, Abba…" and then the chorus of "Fernando" kicked in and I remembered how Abba was my favorite band when I was seven. Raabe’s version of "Super Trooper" sounds like it’s an original.

Max Raabe – Oops I Did It Again

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Max Raabe – We Are The Champions

Max Raabe – Bongo Bong (King of Bongos)

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Max Raabe – Super Trooper

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I love how now in digital culture all the curtains are coming down and the tricks are being revealed. How do they make those beats anyway? Could I do it in my own bedroom? Check it and yes. This vid is great great great…it takes a little bit to get going, and he’s trying a little too hard to make it sort of "artsy", but the overall effect is nice. It’s a good beat too.

The Art of Beat Making "Believe"-Vinroc from Vinroc on Vimeo.

Well, yesterday I drove 3 hours to Wilmington, DE and for most of the drive (from Brooklyn all the way down the NJ turnpike) I was behind a little red sportscar that had this great sticker on it saying "Pick Up One Piece of Litter A Day". I like that a lot…I’m gonna give it a shot. And then today I came across this, from the late 70’s:

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Letters From Iowa Jima – B+

Well, somehow I’d had a lot of hype on this film…it won an Oscar, right? So I was really primed for it to be great, and there was definitely a lot to like about it. First of all, it was beautifully filmed. The colors, the shots, the staging, the acting, the art direction — all were absolutely fantastic. And the directing was really solid too, you really felt what he wanted you to feel, the dullness of the preparations, the anxiety of the upcoming the attack, the despair and full-on fear of the battle.

And beyond that, the film did a really powerful job of making you connect with the particular cultural idiosyncracies of the Japanese military. It really made me anxious and fearful when the idea of the honorable suicide began to make itself known. And there were lots of points where Maxine and I found ourselves saying "Why is he doing that?!" Somehow that made a real impression.

But there were a number of cheeseball moments too — from the cliche scene with the soldier and his pregnant wife, to the streaky slo-mo of the letters falling out at the end. And something overall was sort of cliche, though I can’t put my finger on it. There’s something about the films that Paul Haggis does that sort of feel like movie-movies, you know? Million Dollar Baby (yuck), Crash (double yuck), and even to a certain extent Valley of Elah (though I liked that one quite a lot).

Overall Letters from Iowa Jima was definitely worth watching, though not as amazing as I hoped it would be. I wonder if I’d get more out of it if I see Flags of Our Fathers. Hmmmm.