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Music I Liked In 2009 [1] [21 Nov 2009|01:16pm]

warren_ellis

By which I mean music released in 2009. And [1] because I’m obviously not going to get them all in one post. It’s going to be lots of little ones. I’m giving myself a month for my memory to work properly. But I think it’s still worth making a note of what was good to my ears this year.

THE SPOILS, Zola Jesus: of which I’ve made much mention lately. Nika’s a beautiful ghost moaning from the shadows of a bombed-out cathedral, on this record. Possibly an aspect of my continuing fascination with The Haunted in early 21st Century music. But I’m returning to this record a lot.

GABON and INCAPULCO and a bunch of other releases, High Wolf: top of the whole glo-fi thing, for me, has been High Wolf and his wet lo-fi tropical dreamstates. GABON in particular was a glorious thing. Hypnogogic reverie when you’ve still got the drugged beat of a rainforest drone-rave beating in your ears.

MAN OF ARAN, British Sea Power: always a band I’ve almost-liked rather than love, but "The SOuth Sound" off this soundtrack they prepared for the re-release of the eponymous film is the best piece of classical building/soaring postrock I’ve heard since "Raise Yr Skinny Fists." I mean, flat fucking out. Coda to the whole subgenre.

HORRIBLES PARADE, Gary War: this thing continues to fascinate me. It’s melted music. Seriously. Like someone went at a wax master with a blowtorch and then struck the record with it. A gorgeous gurgling gargoyle of a thing. Partially dissolved rock.

FLORINE, Julianna Barwick: astonishing vocal music, multitracked and layered and processed until it became the sound that the trails of collapsing photons passing through the feathers of angels’ wings in a particle accelerator should make. Or something.

BROADCAST AND THE FOCUS GROUP INVESTIGATE WITCH CULTS OF THE RADIO AGE, Broadcast And The Focus Group: the title should tell you all you need to know. You’re either the sort of person who wants to own an album by that title, or you’re not. It is, as Moon Wiring Club would say, in the finest tradition of confusing English electronic music. It’s less a "proper" album than a collection of sounds that surround a certain set of timebound notions about Strangeness. As the title implies, it sometimes seems more like research (in the form of original music). It is really bloody good, yes.

(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)
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Batman's Cannonball Run To Awesome [Brave And Bold Recap] [21 Nov 2009|11:00am]
io9feed

Oh, Batman: The Brave and The Bold, clearly you know the way to my heart: A guest-star filled episode featuring heroes and villains having to race each other in special vehicles for the fate of the planet? Yes please.

Last night's "Death Race To Oblivion" was exactly the kind of thing Brave and the Bold feels like it was created to do: From the ridiculous-yet-awesome concept (Mongul forces everyone to have a super drag race, with the survival of Earth hanging in the balance) to the choice of guest-stars (Guy Gardner? Plastic Man and Woozy Winks?), everything was just fun; enjoyably fluffy, sure, but well done and completely watchable. Like the best episodes of the series, "Death Race" worked on both the fanboy level and the - for want of a better way of putting it - childlike sense of wonder level, with a special sidestep into the dreams of car fetishists this time around (Oh, come on, who didn't like seeing the Jokermobile again?). It may not have had the crossover appeal of an NPH guestspot, but in many ways, "Death Race" was the perfect example of the series at its best, making less than obvious choices to come up with something that's obviously fun. If the rest of the second season (of which this was the first official episode) is this good, then we're in for a treat.


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Latest Space Shuttle Mission Lifts Off, Stuffed With Worms [Space Shuttle] [21 Nov 2009|10:00am]
io9feed

Space Shuttle Atlantis took to the skies this week, carrying thousands of microscopic worms to be used in muscle-degeneration research. We already know these worms can handle spaceflight, because in 2003, another group of them survived a fall from orbit.

The worms aboard the current Atlantis mission, which launched on Monday, hail from Britain's University of Nottingham, where biologists hope to use their tiny lab subjects to gain insight into the ways that muscles develop and atrophy. Though the worm-testing will take place in zero gravity, it has applications here on the homeworld: people who are bedridden, or who have muscular dystrophy or diabetes, are among those who stand to benefit from this week's research.

The batch of worms currently orbiting Earth started life in a Bristol garbage dump. Given such humble origins, you'd never guess their prominence in modern science. The worms are Caenorhabditis elegans nematodes, a species prized for its archetypal genetic structure and often used in far-reaching experiments. In 1998, for example, C. elegans became the first multicellular organism to have its genome fully sequenced.

Part of the reason C. elegans was included in the current mission is its impressive NASA resume. In 2003, the shuttle Columbia broke apart during re-entry after a sixteen-day expedition, resulting in the deaths of all seven crew members. Some time later, a colony of C. elegans that had been on board was found in the crashed wreckage, alive and well.

The worms are just one part of a busy biology week at the International Space Station, where Atlantis is currently docked. A "Butterflies in Space" program will follow the development of a group of caterpillars that went up on the latest flight, and another set of experiments on the cambium tissue in a sampling of Canadian willows will explore how trees grow in microgravity. It's all important work, although you could argue that until we figure out whether ants can be trained to sort tiny screws in space, we haven't really learned anything.


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code words everywhere [21 Nov 2009|01:37pm]
unnecessaryquot

I have no idea what it means to walk with an "old x-ray." It's probably code for some terrible punishment. Thanks, Kiron.
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Gonick on the End of "History" [21 Nov 2009|09:53am]
cbr_rss
Larry Gonick, the creator of the long-running “Cartoon History of the Universe” comic series talked with ROBOT 6’s Chris Mautner’s about wrapping up his magnum opus after working on it for over three decades.
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The New Year is coming.. [21 Nov 2009|09:54pm]

_urban_photos

[aramis7]
There is a city gold

Крупнее, 1024x682  )
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bagel code [21 Nov 2009|12:52pm]
unnecessaryquot

I want to have a secret code in bagels, that sounds delicious. Thanks, Julie.
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Check It Out: Deer [21 Nov 2009|11:42am]
theonionfeed
News In Photos


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Doctor Who Meets 2001 [Youtube Trawl] [21 Nov 2009|09:00am]
io9feed

What if Doctor Who had starred in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey? A new fan video shows a potential crossover between the two, and dodgy CGI-David Tennant aside, we like what we see.

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Will Hayabusa Make It Back To Earth? [Probedeath] [21 Nov 2009|08:00am]
io9feed

The pellet gun failed to fire, three of its four engines have failed, and mission control has lost control of it once already. Already months late, what are the odds that Japanese probe Hayabusa will make it home at all?

New Scientist reports that the Japanese Hayabusa asteroid probe is once more on its way back to Earth after scientists worked out a way to use two of the broken engines together to make... one engine:

One engine is still able to spit out positive ions for thrust, but can no longer squirt out negatively charged electrons, a step needed to prevent electric charge buildup on the spacecraft. The team got around this by spewing the required electrons from a second sick engine that retains this ability.

But even with this "frankensteined" engine, scientists at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency aren't confident that the probe will reach the Australian outback destination it was supposed to have reached earlier this month; if all goes well, project manager Jun'ichiro Kawaguchi says, it should return in June next year. But, he adds,

This new configuration is very new to us and we are not sure ... how much we can count on [it].

It's like the little probe that can't.

'Frankenstein' fix lets asteroid mission cheat death [New Scientist]


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Sports: Several 2009 MLB Awards Clearly Thought Up On The Spot [21 Nov 2009|10:30am]
theonionfeed
NEW YORK—A number of players suggested to reporters Monday that, with accolades such as the AL Platinum Baseman Award and the Best Lead Off of the Year Trophy, the Baseball Writers' Association of America was almost certainly making up its year-end honors on the spot.


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BOOM! Studios Titles On Sale November 25, 2009 [21 Nov 2009|08:58am]
cbr_rss
BOOM! Studios has provided CBR with advance looks at new comics on sale November 25, including Howard Chaykin's "Die Hard: Year One" #3, "Monsters Inc." #3, "Muppet Peter Pan" #3, and "Uncle Scrooge" #385!
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VOTE: Top 100 Comic Book Storylines Of All Time [21 Nov 2009|07:58am]
cbr_rss
CSBG needs your help in counting down the 100 greatest comic book stories ever created! Vote for your favorites and come back later this month to see where your choices land in the Top 100 Storylines of All Time!
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Links for 2009-11-21 [21 Nov 2009|10:00am]

warren_ellis
(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)
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I see what's going on here [21 Nov 2009|10:49am]
unnecessaryquot

So "noon" means "whenever I show up at the store, how's 9ish?" Thanks, William.
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Modern & Gothic Milwaukee [21 Nov 2009|11:03am]

_urban_photos

[avagara]
[ mood | cold ]
[ music | Talvin Singh - traveller (kid loco's once upon a time in the west mix) ]

Modern and Gothic Milwaukee

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Pitt Vs. Aliens: It Could Happen! [Dark Void] [21 Nov 2009|07:00am]
io9feed

After turning time back in The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, Brad Pitt is considering jumping into the middle of a parallel universe war with aliens. Think he can convince Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney to come along?

Pitt's production company, Plan B, is teaming with Indian company Reliance BIG to adapt the upcoming videogame Dark Void, with an eye to it being a vehicle for Pitt himself, according to Variety. The game centers around a character who disappears in the Bermuda Triangle, only to reappear on an alternate Earth besieged with alien invaders. No writers or directors have been hired for the project yet, so we're keeping our hopes up for an unexpected (and utterly unlikely, we know) Soderbergh connection.

Brad Pitt could fight (video game) aliens [THR Risky Business]


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Nation's Music Snobs Protest Predictable Use Of Metallica, Pantera To Torture Prisoners [21 Nov 2009|09:00am]
theonionfeed
WASHINGTON—"What those poor people have had to suffer through is a terrible, shameful travesty," said Rolling Stone's David Fricke. "Can you imagine being forced to listen to Deicide and Drowning Pool all day long?"


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LIVE TONIGHT IN ALBANY, NY 11/21 [21 Nov 2009|06:05am]
mc_chris_myspac
...
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Peru. Cuzco. [21 Nov 2009|02:03am]

_urban_photos

[yuhop]

Read more... )
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