Throwing $42.54 into the Church of Beck collection basket, pt. 4

Guero Deluxe 2-Disc Edition: $36.99 * 1.15 = $42.54 (at HMV).


Outside. 


Inside. 

I can't stop obsessing about Beck, pt. 3

A quote from a post on Lightning Struck Itself, a blog by Clem Bastow:

Somebody once said, in relation to Beck's eclecticism, that 'no one in real life likes country and hip hop' ... It is his tenth album and his second made having returned wholeheartedly to the arms of a certain celebrity church/cult, the one that actively encourages its members not to seek inspiration, friendship or collaboration from 'no-case-gains' ... Guero led me to something of a revelation: could it be that this 'faith's' cultural isolationism is at the root of Beck's legendary eclecticism? If you're raised within a vacuum, it's pretty hard to worry about liking country and hip hop - and samba and jazz and metal and rock and, and...

This made me remember something I read a couple months ago.

"The revolution that failed", Salon.com:

Spike Jonze, while not as cantankerous as those three, comes off as an immature, insecure skate-punk prankster with little intellectual curiosity and a blissful ignorance of pre-"Star Wars" culture. This may be why his movies, "Being John Malkovich" and "Adaptation," seem so original -- he isn't imitating classic films of the past because he's never even seen them. Waxman reports that one day on the set of the former film Jonze took Malkovich aside to tell him he was overacting a scene. "I was getting a little Blanche there, wasn't I?" the star agreed. Jonze looked puzzled. "Blanche Dubois," responded Malkovich. "Tennessee Williams? 'A Streetcar Named Desire'? Blanche Dubois?" Jonze could only shrug; he had no idea what Malkovich was talking about. "What did you get me into?" Malkovich moaned to producer Steve Golin, who could only respond, "At least it won't be derivative."

Obsessing about Beck, pt. 2

Oh my fucking god, Beck is a Scientologist (thank you for the info, Dave).

1. The Guardian says Beck is a Scientologist.


2. The liner notes in Guero thanks Jenna Elfman who is well, uhh... Here's a link.


3. Beck showed up at a party with a known Scientologist.


4. This: The Secret Life of Beck Hansen - A Guide for the Professional Journalist


5. In the interview published by the Planet magazine, Beck sounds very uncomfortable when George W. Bush and Jesus come up as a subject. (Read The Secret Life of Beck Hansen.)


6. Beck recently performed at a Scientology gala.


7. His mom (Bibbe Hansen), dad (David Campbell), wife (Marissa Ribisi), brother-in-law (Giovanni Ribisi), and mother-in-law (Gay Ribisi) are all Scientologists.

I wonder if Sofia Coppola is a Scientologist too. (That would be just terrible).

Only 4 days to go 'til Beck's new album

With Beck's newest album, Guero, set to drop in four days, I am feeling strangely compelled to disseminate irrelevant and trivial information about Beck (damn you, obsessive-compulsive tendencies that run in the family). So here it is:

• Beck is married to Marissa Ribisi, the twin sister of Giovanni Ribisi. Giovanni is a close friend of Sofia Coppola. (God, I love Sofia.)


• Issue 9 of Planet magazine (which I bought today at KW Book Store) has Beck on the front cover and an advertisement for Sofia, the alcopop-in-can from from the Niebaum-Coppola Winery, on the back.


• Beck's grandfather, Al Hansen, who was a founder of the Fluxus movement, discovered Yoko Ono.


• Beck's mother, Bibbe Hansen, was part of Andy Warhol's Factory scene (here's a link to a very interesting interview of Bibbe Hansen by Vaginal Davis for index magazine).


• Smokey, who plays bass guitar for Beck, was a member of Cibo Matto, whose drummer was Sean Lennon, John and Yoko's son.


• The video for "E-Pro", first single off Guero, was done by Shynola, a British design team. They are represented in U.S. by The Directors Bureau, which was founded by Sofia Coppola, Roman Coppola (her brother), and Mike Mills.


• Guero was produced by The Dust Brothers. Beck and the Brothers (who are not actually brothers) also collaborated on Odelay.


• The Dust Brothers also produced Paul's Boutique, the album that established Beastie Boys as hip-hop gods. Sean Lennon, who played drums for Cibo Matto, which included Smokey, who plays bass for Beck, was signed to Beastie Boys' label, Grand Royale. That is, before the label/magazine went kaput in 2001.

I think that should do for today.

Yahoo acquires Flickr

God, oh, no.

One more reason to like Haruki Murakami

An excerpt from The Paris Review, No. 170

Interviewer: Did you think that book [Norwegian Wood] as an exercise in style, or did you have a specific story to tell that was best told realistically?

[Haruki] Murakami: I could have been a cult writer if I'd kept writing surrealistic novels. But I wanted to break into the mainstream, so I had to prove that I coulde write a realistic book. That's why I wrote that book. It was a bestseller in Japan, and I expected that result.

Interview: So it was actually a strategic choice.

Murakami: That's right. Norwegian Wood is very easy to read and easy to understand. Many people liked that book. They might then be interested in my other work; so it helps a lot.

Daft Punk, fuck yeah!

Fuck yeah! 

Soon, we'll be assualted by furious storms of poo

The geese are back
Originally uploaded by gloom.

They are back.

How to get your own Audioscrobbler sidebar running

After contemplating Dave's rather bizarre offer of forgiveness, I have decided to release the code I used to generate the Audioscrobbler sidebar.

So here it is:



The above piece of code will generate JavaScript file that you can link from your blog by putting the following lines of HTML in your Blogger template.




The PHP script uses Magpie RSS Parser, which you should be able to get from here. You should read the Magpie FAQ on caching. (For this, all you need to do is create a directory named 'cache' in the directory where you put the PHP script.)

U of W's Computer Science, Mathematics, and Engineering undergraduate web servers are PHP-enabled, so you should be able to run the script from your web space. As for Artsies, ESers, and AHSers, I don't know if you can run PHP scripts.

"What I am listening to now" sidebar

As you might have already noticed, I now have the "What I am listening to now" sidebar.

For those of you who are technically inclined, it's powered by Audioscrobbler RSS feed and Magpie RSS Parser.

If you aren't already using Audioscrobbler, you really should. I mean, how else would you find out you have 50% musical taste match with a really skanky Finnish man?

Thanks to Dave, from whose blog entry I discovered Audioscrobbler.