I keep hearing about Lady Gaga all the time and even reading articles about her in the New Yorker, like the one about the hat that superstar architect Frank Gehry designed for her. But I'd never heard any of her songs till this morning in the car when I happened to have the radio tuned to some crap mainstream station. I knew it was her, just guessing based on the weirdness of it and the fact that part of the odd gobbledegook chorus was a repeated "ga-ga-oh-la-la" or something.  I was so struck by the track that when I got home I looked her up on youtube and found the music video. It was called "Bad Romance" and when I watched it I was so disturbed that I literally cried. I don't mean cry as some kind of metaphor for frustration or anger or whatever. I mean I actually was so sad and upset that I started to break down and weep.

Now before I explain why let me make clear Read more>>>

I heard about the National Geographic Channel's new series "Border Wars" a couple weeks ago and upon looking at its webpage knew that it would be complete crap - basically another "Cops" but focused exclusively on latinos in the southwest.  It comes at a surprise that it would be on this channel, but after Fox launched its own fear-mongering "Border Patrol" program last year it seems logical that other networks would want to get in on the act, considering the depth of xenophobia in the U.S. audience.

John Carlos Frey writes a seething review of "Border Wars", and the most important point, in my view, that he raises is this one: Read more>>>

About 8 months ago I took part in an ambient experimental audio jam session with Glenn Weyant and Adam Cooper-Teran.  Adam was recording the whole thing on the video camera of his laptop, and afterward I composited some other found material onto the footage, and then he took what I did and said he would process it further.  I didn't know he'd finished with it till I came across it on his Vimeo channel:

Since it was originally just 3 boring dorks in a living room pressing buttons (except Glenn who gently hits and scrapes metal things), this super-abstractification is a welcome improvement. Read more>>>