Greenwald on NYT

What Glenn said: [Egyptian Mirror] [Obama's Man in Cairo]

Thus ends series on our venerable paper of record, those proud and withered heralds of the ‘Murkan royal court. They haven’t noticed yet, but ages ago their horns were swapped for jester balls.

wishful thinking

feb 7, day 14 of revolutionary protests in egypt. people and regime lie in stalemate, two days after ruling clique conducts “talks” with “opposition groups.” aljazeera frames it thus: “talks fail to end egypt protests.” now nytimes, leading light of thamurkin librul imperium, takes heart in the appearance of a revolution in stagnation. offers hopefully: “protests linger as normal life in cairo begins to resume.” i bet these editors love the taste of bullshit by now, seeing how they swallow it on a daily basis.

UPDATE: since first drafting this post, NYT has changed the story’s headline, it appears, twice. now the html title is “cairo struggles toward normalcy as mubarak tries to wait out protest.” and the headline on the page now reads “egypt’s leaders seek to project air of normalcy.” seems a bit of the shit they swallowed came up again.

Imperial Falconry

Today arrived the latest juicy episode in the NYT’s ongoing carnival of self-parody:

WASHINGTON — Last year, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia proposed an unorthodox way to return Guantánamo Bay prisoners to a chaotic country like Yemen without fear that they would disappear and join a terrorist group.

The king told a top White House aide, John O. Brennan, that the United States should implant an electronic chip in each detainee to track his movements, as is sometimes done with horses and falcons.

“Horses don’t have good lawyers,” Mr. Brennan replied.

What fun! Such perfect documentary evidence of the dehumanized imperial mind never landed on the screen of a bored New York ‘reporter’ in such a delightful little package. No self-respecting journalist could pass on the juicy animal simile, I suppose, but having once included it, our man Charlie Savage, long dead to any comedic inspiration, breathed a sigh of dusty air and coughed up the following:

That unusual discussion in March 2009 was one of hundreds recounted in a cache of secret State Department cables obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to a number of news organizations that reveal the painstaking efforts by the United States to safely reduce the population of the Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba so that it could eventually be closed.

I thought the NYT had truly outdone itself with last week’s totally farcical story of the now wealthy Afghani con man who milked, quote, “lots of money” from enthusiastic US officials by pretending to be a senior Taliban leader. But it seems the funny valve must’ve burst long ago up at NYT hq, and yes, everyone realizes, and no, no one gives a damn anymore, now that they’ve gotten used to wading through the office every morning knee-deep in bullshit.

BOOGIE MUSIC

We must make BOOGIE MUSIC the essential factor in the life of all. In presenting this song to the world, we must then explain and justify our position by formulating a definition of BOOGIE MUSIC and setting forth its main principles in such a way that all may understand instantly that their souls, their lives and every relation with every other human being in every circumstance depends on BOOGIE MUSIC and the right comprehension and right application there of. –Canned Heat

Substitute for “boogie music” salvation in Jesus, the eight-fold path, the will of the Leader, etc., and you have a perfect example of the typical utopian desire to conquer, the faith that one has true knowledge of social reality and social what-should-be, coupled with the will to spread it, like a virus, among others. But that is just the text. Listen now to the words in the context of driving, sexual BOOGIE MUSIC, the purity and strength of whose highs and lows and beats and holds give emotional force to the otherwise absurd text, and the TRUTH of the words can no longer be denied. This raw energy of life, of sex, transmitted via BOOGIE MUSIC and made anew in open ears, gives sudden clarity to the vision, obscure to outsiders, of the quivering Christian enraptured by the Holy Spirit, of every little buddha and yogi transcending the self, of the Vodou dancer caught by the spirit of her Lwa–and we no longer can deny the overwhelming, obvious TRUTH of what they say, though the text of their words be laughable and absurd. And thus does BOOGIE MUSIC make the callous skeptic to joyful believer.

human endeavor

assume for a moment that all human endeavor is a pile of shit. and because you’re alive, and human, you have to eat from this pile of shit more or less all the time. it’s pretty easy to pick out bits of corn and carrots, and pretty easy to avoid, at a minimum, eating exclusively shit. now what most people don’t realize is that mixed in with the shit and undigested pinto beans are teeny tiny nuggets of the world’s finest chocolate, packed with enough nutrients for weeks at a time and laced with the finest of aghanistan’s exports. but if you want to find them you’ll spend hours and hours and hours picking through the giant shitpile, and more often than not what you thought was chocolate was really just chicken dropping. meanwhile, people are staring at you, confused, wondering why you spend all your time at the shit trough just to eat chicken shit instead of regular shit like everyone else.

INTERVIEW WITH BRENDAN MURRAY

Commonwealth

Brendan Murray, Boston’s badly overlooked master of dronemusik and the author of one of 2008′s best ambient releases, a 49-minute aural monolith called Commonwealth, has kindly agreed to answer a few questions about his latest work, released earlier this year by 23five. Stream the excerpt below, enjoy the shimmering wall of sound, and read the artist’s thoughts about this monumental effort.

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Brendan Murray – Commonwealth (excerpt):

(Available for purchase direct from the label and from these fine distributors.)

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What kind of musical ideas did you develop as you worked on Commonwealth?

I spent a lot of time listening to thinking about minimalism, specifically “classic” New York Minimalism. That led me to consider notions of musical form that was not episodic in nature, like some of my earlier work. I dispensed with field recordings as well, as I did not want to rely on them for “glue” within a composition. I developed a tonal palate instead from recordings of guitar and synthesizer and spent a very long time honing them into something both static and propulsive; sound that appeared to “stand still and move very fast” all at once. I knew I wanted something that was one thought, one track. The last time I did that successfully was the “Ocean Of Dirt, Mountain Of Steam” CDR on Gameboy (which is out of print, but I saw one copy at the Hospital store a few weeks ago).

How did you transform your source material into the sounds we hear on the album?

The transformation of the sounds, as you put it, was brought on with constant layering and editing. When a “tone group” was created, I then made a mix of those sounds and reedited it over and over, until a large block of sound was created. I didn’t want to have any recognizable trace of the source material, so I spent a lot of time taking out attacks, string vibrations, any detectable filters from synths, etc. I used a lot of pitch treatment to create building blocks for the piece and the bulk of the work was spent timing and sequencing these “blocks” until they made sense as a piece of music.

How would you relate Commonwealth to your past works in terms of development as a musician?

Commonwealth was a big deal for me artistically. I put a huge amount of pressure on myself and got really caught up in it towards the end. It turned out to be for other, personal reasons, but after I finished it, I didn’t make solo music for nearly six or seven months, which was the biggest break I had ever taken. It relates to earlier pieces (like “Ocean”, as I mentioned) but stands as the most complete thought I’ve had thus far. It’s opened a lot of doors for me (that has a lot to do with 23Five and what a great label they are) and to be totally frank, the record gave me some much-needed confidence. I had a bad self-deprecating streak when it came to my music, and the amount of work Commonwealth required cured me of that. I’m not saying it turned me into a big egomaniac or something; it was more that I was just…proud of it. It punctuated 7 or 8 years of learning how to be a composer and finding a voice that was articulate.

What are your hopes and plans for 2009?

2009 will be busy.

There are three releases out on the Students Of Decay label at the beginning of 2009 that I am very excited about. The main one is a solo record with no title (or self-titled if you like) that is made up of shorter pieces that I made very quickly (for me) last year. Most of them are based on recordings from shows, or music prepared for shows, so it has an almost “diary” quality that I like.

The second is the bonus disc that comes with the pre-order called “The Cold Piano”, which is an unedited live recording made at the Swedenborg Chapel in Cambridge, MA, opening for my friends undr quartet. It was their 10th anniversary concert and I presented a piece made entirely with piano sounds. It was January, hence the wildly clever title.

The third release is “Exploded Heart Mixes”, which is a CDR which re-works some music cue that I did for a documentary called “Human Heart Explodes” that played at a few festivals in 2006. The pieces are made from recordings of three string players: Mike Bullock (contrabass), Katt Hernandez (violin) and Vic Rawlings (cello).

Also in 2009 I’m firming up plans to travel to the West Coast to play a concert that I’ll have more information about when it’s announced.

There’s lots of collaborative work as well. Hell Hoarse, my duo with NYC improviser Chuck Bettis, spent some time in the studio this fall and we plan to finally finish a record. There’s a long-standing collaboration with Claudio Rocchetti that I’m working on, my band Ouest (with Jay Sullivan and Howie Stelzer) will do some touring, the rock band Paper Summer that I am in with my friends Chokdee and Sam (I play drums and guitar) is writing new material.

There’s also some projects that are just getting started: a DVD with Richard Garet and Asher, in which we all make films and sound pieces is being discussed. Asher and I are also working on a duo record. I am doing an LP for the Kvist label that will be very different from most of my other work. There’s a singer named Noell Dorsey in Boston who is classically trained and has a great range as an improviser and she’s agreed to help with a new piece based on recordings of her voice. Also, Bhob Rainey and I are finally going to do play live as a duo after talking about it for a long time. I also joined a large band directed by saxophonist Dave Gross in which I play synth. Dave has also agreed to let me produce his next solo record, which will be “high concept”, to say the least.

That sounds like a lot, and it is. Now I have to do it! I’m more active now then I’ve ever been and am pretty excited to work as much as possible.

This interview was conducted via email.