St. Vincent: “The Strangers”
[from Actor; out 05.05.09 on 4ad]
First Animal Collective, then Asobi Seksu, Grizzly Bear, Camera Obscura, Phoenix, and now St. Vincent! Could 2009 be the best year of music EVER?
Coast to coast in two hours!
Yes, it’s even faster than the AGV [Photo courtesy of forcechange.com]
While curiously searching for jobs at organizations that will most likely never hire me, I came across two old reports by the RAND Corporation, a non-profit global policy think tank, on a high speed transit system that is fast, very fast.
During the Seventies, RAND researched the possibility of establishing a trans-continental subway system that would provide an express commute from Los Angeles to New York in TWO HOURS, through airless tunnels via Planetran (or vactrain), a high speed train driven by electromagnetic waves.
It takes a little less than six hours to travel that 2,500 mile distance the old-fashioned way by plane. If you do the math, this extreme train would be covering 1,250 miles in one hour! But since the cost to fund this project would be well over a trillion dollars, the government swiftly rejected the plan.
You can read the RAND reports here:
The Very High Speed Transit System (Robert M. Salter, 1972)
Trans-Planetary Subway Systems: A Burgeoning Capability (Robert M. Salter, 1978)
Wikipedia entry:
Vactrain
I’m assuming technology, thirty years hence these reports were published, has advanced greatly to reduce the costs to build this transit system and perhaps make it even more efficient and very, very fast. If only we had a trillion dollar government surplus rather than a deficit… Oh, the possibilities!
Phoenix: “1901”
[from Wolfgang Amadeux Phoenix; out 05.25.09]
New Phoenix tune! YUSSSSSSSSS!!
[Photo via pds]
[from 808s & Heartbreak; released 11.24.08 on Roc-A-Fella Records]
Kanye, I feel ya dude.
I’m a sucker for well-cut, blissful teasers that promise indie pop amour. In this case, anti-rom com and post-modern loving — whatever that means. And that damn song by the Temper Trap is so catchy. It seems like the hip trailers of today can’t help but borrow some of the youthful and cool playfulness of Godard’s Masculin Feminin. Anyway, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is one of my favorite young actors and Zooey Deschanel (♡All The Real Girls) is so pretty; they make a perfect movie pairing! Summer, please come soon!
Happiness is the path
Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
The beginning of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker suggests a meteor crash or an alien landing on a wilderness site that is now cordoned by the military. Not to be mistaken by the harassing act of following another person, the film is named after expert guides who lead individuals into the Zone to find the room where all of one’s deepest, innermost wishes become reality. Two men known simply as Writer and Professor are carefully directed to this mysterious place by a Stalker of whom has no ulterior motives. Though Writer and Professor share opposing viewpoints on the meaning of life along the way, their conscious search for satisfaction and happiness is plagued by their subconscious desires.
It’s a miracle this film was even made. After filming for a full year at deserted power plants in Estonia, Tarkovsky discovered the experimental Kodak stock he used was defected. Instead of abandoning the film outright, he refocused his energy and re-wrote the script and re-shot almost all of the film. The end product is vastly different from the original, but more true to his vision.
Methodical in pace and enthralling with moments of sheer, sublime beauty, Stalker is an exhausting yet rejuvenating sojourn into the fragility of the human spirit. There is a masterful dream sequence and panning shot that displays Tarkovsky’s stern attention to detail and his natural ability to establish compositions that stimulate the mind with wonder. As a collection of his trademark long takes, the film can seem overwrought and tedious for some, but the director’s intention was to evoke a sense of continuity within the frame where time, space and action become uniform and altogether fluid with the narrative. Tarkovsky’s goal was to film Stalker as if the whole film was made in one shot. In this shot, Tarkovsky captures more than images and sounds; he captures life.
Oh! Camera Obscura’s announced their first single from the forthcoming album release of My Maudlin Career, which comes out on April 20th. Take a listen.
Besides this and the aforementioned Hush, I’ve been really looking forward to Phoenix’s new LP that’s ridiculously titled Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix . The music outlook for 2009 is shaping up to be mighty AWESOME.
[from Microcastles/Weird Era Continued; released 10.28.08 on 4AD]
It’s Friday! And that calls for a celebration!
Is it just me or did Deerhunter become a lot sexier with this song?
Thomas Jefferson
São Paulo photo by Jan Egil Kirkebø. Moleskine-inspired image by Lost in Scotland.
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