Not UFO
I asked the BOM about the weird satellite pictures that were posted here and they replied:
Of course, they would write something like that. Wouldn't they? ;)
As you might be aware, Carnarvon radar is in the process of being upgraded. Refer:
http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDR053.loop.shtml#skip
After a month or so of construction etc, it was ready for testing last Wednesday. We shut off the display on the external web pages but kept the data flowing internally so that we could inspect the product. Radars need tuning before they are ready for general use. Unfortunately we did not turn off the contribution from Carnarvon to the national summary and that's what you saw on it - the untuned returns from Carnarvon radar.
Apologies for the inconvenience. We've adjusted our systems now so that the Carnarvon radar image data isn't available externally.
Of course, they would write something like that. Wouldn't they? ;)
UFO?
Below are a series of weather satellite images that show an unusual pattern form and disperse. I know it's probably something simple like the bottom of some coffee cup on the monitor (;p) but it reminded me of these mysterious circles, so I thought I'd share.
Unstimulated
There's still a few days to go but I don't think I'll be collecting any money in the Federal Government's Stimulus Package as I didn't pay any tax last financial year.
This leads me to find it kinda ironic that the Rudd Government is being criticised for the delay in announcing paid parental leave because I took the financial year off to help at home after the birth of my second child.
This leads me to find it kinda ironic that the Rudd Government is being criticised for the delay in announcing paid parental leave because I took the financial year off to help at home after the birth of my second child.
Come see me at Federation Square this month
A few of my videos are on the BIG SCREEN at Federation Square each day from 2.30pm during May as part of the Notes From The Underground Program.
Can women sell speakers?
On one level I can see these are attractive women, engagingly posed and yet, on another, they have no place in this ad except to provide an excuse for derogatory puns about being "easy to mount" and "plastic" - which can mean superficial.
I'm left with the opinion that the company thinks their consumers want superficial things like attractive women rather than high fidelity speakers.
Maybe I'm the only feminist who reads audio magazines.
The beetles are a hit!
Observers of politics and agriculture within the Murrumbidgee catchment may have been entertained to receive an invitation to an information session on dung beetles to be hosted by Junee farmer and Senator, The Hon. Bill Heffernan on Monday, 11th May 2009. The Senator has been accused of maintaining dirt files in the past and, in addition to his unfounded slur against former High Court Justice Michael Kirby in 2002, was linked to the spectacular demise of former NSW Liberal leader John Brogden in 2006.
It was a surprise for this observer that the invitation arrived via email, as Heffernan claimed in 2007 during the announcement of Labor’s broadband plan, that he had never sent an email in his life.
However, what is most interesting about this information session is that it follows Heffernan’s colourful criticism of fertiliser giant Incitec Pivot during a 2008 Senate inquiry. As Chair of the Senate Select Committee’s inquiry into the Australian and global fertiliser market, Heffernan is recorded in Hansard as saying:
"You realise that we who have an interest to declare, like your shareholders, think that you are well and truly giving us one up the back passage? We really feel aggrieved about this.”
While the scatological language favoured by Heffernan might be compared to various fertilizers, it is truly an example of how challenges, such as the rise in the prices of Incitec Pivot products, can be met with alternative methods. Perhaps the Senator is not as conservative as he makes out?
Number one by the pallet
Bernard Zuel has an interesting discussion of the role of charts in popular music today.
He neglects to mention that these actual sales are from a sample of stores and doesn't include some of the most popular retailers. Perhaps it's not surprising, I heard a story from Stuart Coupe once that a journalist attempted to write an expose of how the ARIA charts are compiled and was met with closed doors. It would be a shame if this happened to Zuel.
Another good quote that explains a little of the creative accounting practices in the entertainment industry:
Just to further confuse the picture, keep in mind that platinum and gold awards are wonky measures as they are record-company driven, based on what the record company sent to or sold in to stores, whether they've sold to the public or not, while the chart positions represent actual sales.
He neglects to mention that these actual sales are from a sample of stores and doesn't include some of the most popular retailers. Perhaps it's not surprising, I heard a story from Stuart Coupe once that a journalist attempted to write an expose of how the ARIA charts are compiled and was met with closed doors. It would be a shame if this happened to Zuel.
Another good quote that explains a little of the creative accounting practices in the entertainment industry:
ARIA's chief executive, Stephen Peach, told the Herald five years ago: "If it sits on the retailer's shelf for six months, it's still a sale as far as the record company is concerned."
Pyromania returns
Unlike last Sunday, this morning was hazy for a different reason.
There had been a warning about air pollution and the smoke was thick. Almost as thick as during the recent bushfires in Victoria and also deliberately lit.
Not to harp on but it infuriates me that this health hazard is the result of farmers sticking to archaic methods rather than adopting the benefits of "100% groundcover, 100% of the time" or using less damaging methods like crushing stubble.
Stubble burning should be banned. These pyromaniacs obviously have no regard for the safety of their communities.
Clone Trooper feedback
My son has been very happy with the Star Wars Clone Trooper helmet bought for his upcoming birthday. His only complaint is that he has to take it off to eat and drink. He says it would be better if he could fit a straw into the helmet.
Thought crimes
http://aeolianharp.wordpress.com/ is a fascinating blog because it presents a somewhat paranoid and challenging view of the issues facing the world. It's great for a bit of balance considering that most of the media we encounter is rarely more than a beat-up to sell advertising.
The post on there today could probably be argued to be an incitement to terrorism but the underlying theme that a food shortage could happen is the real message and it's one worth considering. I was surprised when I was at the park with the kids that an old Italian lady we talked to said we should ensure our kids learn to grow their own food because she had lived through shortages in her life.
The giant corporations that are stripping the earth bare and dispossessing local subsistence economies the world over can’t function without two things: computers and electricity. Those two things are like the central nervous system and the blood flow of corporate power. And that’s where they’re vulnerable. These networks could be disrupted manually or through computer hacking. But anyone who wanted to attempt this would have to approach it like a war, like a serious resistance movement.
The post on there today could probably be argued to be an incitement to terrorism but the underlying theme that a food shortage could happen is the real message and it's one worth considering. I was surprised when I was at the park with the kids that an old Italian lady we talked to said we should ensure our kids learn to grow their own food because she had lived through shortages in her life.
1978
Graham gave me this CD the other day, given to him by a mate of a mate. I'm enjoying it and feel somehow obligated to spread the good word, like in the old days when I'd review CDs for BMA and sometimes get to keep one.
One of the cool ideas I've learned from reading-up on Brian Eno is that, at the outset of any project, you should look at your constraints or create some to adopt as boundaries for creative work. Like it helps contain focus and shape ideas.
Blair Joscelyne's "1978" is sort of a concept album. He's chosen the year of his birth and relates in the booklet how it's also the year a Realistic keyboard (designed by Moog) was produced and this led him to settle on seeking instruments, mastering limiters and even a graphic designer (from, well, 1977) as part of the constraint to shape his album.
It's a very funky album, I can hear Ramsey Lewis' influence (like "Sun Goddess" from 1974) in the 'ooh aah'-style backings vocals of the second track 'Mothers milk'. It's also '70s funk in featuring the odd sincere ballad in the form of 'Drawn to you' but it's 1978 by way of 1998, particularly Kruder and Dorfmeister's breakthrough album "The K&D Sessions".
This is smooth funk in the down-tempo, dub-influenced style of contemporary electronica and it's hella good fun and a cohesive album to boot.
Mistletoe
Mistletoe was once considered a pest that kills trees and devalues natural habitats but, in recent years, it has been recognised as a species that has a large influence over its ecological community.
About 1500 species of mistletoe are found around the world with 94 species native to Australia, of which 71 are endemic. Two Australian species are root parasites while the others are aerial parasites. These attach to the host plant using a connection called a haustorium. For aerial varieties, it’s a bond that can promote hollow formation on tree branches after the mistletoe dies, providing nesting sites for birds and mammals.
Mistletoe fruit is high in protein, carbohydrates and lipids; while the leaves are high in nitrogen, phosphorous and trace elements. A broad array of animals depend on mistletoe for food, consuming the leaves and young shoots, while also transferring pollen between plants. Birds and animals will also disperse the sticky seeds. These consumers include insects, possums, gliders, honeyeaters and, of course, the mistletoebird. A study at Gundaroo found there were fewer birds in a site in which mistletoe had been removed.
One of the most beautiful and interesting consumers of mistletoe is a butterfly, the Amaryllis Azure. Found throughout Australia, it has iridescent blue wings but can be difficult to spot as it flies high among the tree tops where the mistletoe grows.
The Amaryllis Azure lays its eggs on mistletoe which grows on a tree that has been colonised by little black ants of the genus Papyrius. When the eggs hatch, the ants provide shelter for the caterpillars in their nest at the base of the tree or under the bark. The caterpillars are shepherded by the ants to a clump of mistletoe at nightfall to feed and then led back to their shelter at dawn. The ants protect the caterpillars through encouraging them to feed at night, when predators such as wasps and birds are less likely to be active. In return the caterpillars provide the ants with food in the form of a sugary substance produced from glands on their back.
Dr David Watson of Charles Sturt University estimates that mistletoe is now ten times more abundant in south-east Australia than it was prior to white settlement. This abundance may indicate the absence and scarcity of natural consumers or decreasing tree health. He recommends the best way to control excessive mistletoe is by addressing the underlying cause, such as putting up nesting boxes to encourage possums and gliders.
The RTA's Venus of the highway
This campaign by the Road and Traffic Authority to shame a certain type of driving favoured by young men is supremely clever. The inference that this behavious is supposed to compensate for having a small dick has been tastefully yet devastatingly conveyed.
I am particularly impressed with the reference to Boticelli's Venus in the billboard design.
The black armband view of Australian history
This view is from outside Narrandera and I wonder if it's part of the history of killing Aboriginals in the area. The Wiradjuri Nation fought against European farmers but the local Narrungderra tribe were eventually rounded up and annihilated on what is now known as Massacre Island.
No more fooling me
I saw how this was done the other day while the dial-up connection was taking an age to load a page. Text behind some of the icons has text like what I've shown.
Fooling Google
How is this done? I receive Google Alerts for my alter ego and was surprised to see this positive affirmation triggered by a forum post I made.
I like this
Silence? Sound?
Better an aeolian harp
Than fool who has
The king's ear.
There are no kings here,
Only torchlights seen
Across dark fields
By beings on business
Of their own.
All illusion is alone.
Could that include this question?
Makes a change to all the Christian devotional poetry about aeolian harps that's appearing online at present.
I mean, seriously, nothing illustrates the superstition versus science argument better than the idea that the sound produced by an aeolian harp is something other than vibrations. Ye olde Victorians thought it was spirits talking from the aether, which is kinda cool in a romantic way but apparently some people thought something similar about the static you can still hear on the radio between stations.
Maybe I'll want to believe there's something beyond the veil of death as it seems closer too?
Murray School of Education videos
Here are a collection of videos I produced with the assistance of final year TV Production students Shelley and Nancy. They also appear on the CSU website.
Distance education with CSU
I don't think I'd finished the first semester of my TV Production degree when I made this. It was screened on TV around Newcastle.
Demand drugs
Susan Sontag wrote that "all genuine moral views are founded on a notion of refusal" and it's a truth that underlies a lot of the values in our so-called Christian society. Refusal is based on what is considered to be right, it's the holier-than-thou attitude that comes from a smug sense of personal satisfaction.
Economists have described interest rates as being "blunt instruments" for controlling inflation and, in a similar way, I believe the law is a blunt instrument for enforcing morals.
The problem with morals is that they're informed by superstition - a dogma. Whereas ethics are based on actually engaging with issues and resolving them through intellectual means.
So reading this comment from Australia's top cop makes me wonder why, if the market dictates demand and price for many services, how come drugs aren't legal?
I guess because morally it's considered poor character to seek escape from personal circumstances. Morally one should confront these flaws and overcome them.
So rather than creating legal avenues that would also create ways of controlling the demand and use of drug, our society casts these issues as moral problems rather than health ones.
It's why people with mental health issues have to demonstrate that they've overcome their drug addictions to receive assistance such as housing. Of course, the catch is that if they're living on the street they're going to seek comfort through drugs.
Another issue is that prohibition doesn't work. Where would problem gamblers be if gambling was illegal and they had no exposure to the harm minimisation messages which are becoming more prevalent? (Well, aside from lining the pockets of Woolworths and the Australian Labor Party.)
Economists have described interest rates as being "blunt instruments" for controlling inflation and, in a similar way, I believe the law is a blunt instrument for enforcing morals.
The problem with morals is that they're informed by superstition - a dogma. Whereas ethics are based on actually engaging with issues and resolving them through intellectual means.
So reading this comment from Australia's top cop makes me wonder why, if the market dictates demand and price for many services, how come drugs aren't legal?
I guess because morally it's considered poor character to seek escape from personal circumstances. Morally one should confront these flaws and overcome them.
So rather than creating legal avenues that would also create ways of controlling the demand and use of drug, our society casts these issues as moral problems rather than health ones.
It's why people with mental health issues have to demonstrate that they've overcome their drug addictions to receive assistance such as housing. Of course, the catch is that if they're living on the street they're going to seek comfort through drugs.
Another issue is that prohibition doesn't work. Where would problem gamblers be if gambling was illegal and they had no exposure to the harm minimisation messages which are becoming more prevalent? (Well, aside from lining the pockets of Woolworths and the Australian Labor Party.)
Dreams are weird
A friend once remarked that he didn't think there was much more boring in conversation than people recounting dreams. He has a point, Carl Jung thought dreams were specific to the dreamer and my experience has been that the conversation is usually a monologue punctuated with the words 'and then...'.
I read a theory that dreams help us prepare, like some teaching tool for unlikely events. It cited that many people talk after accidents of how it was a dream-like experience. I guess this would be a way for the brain to create neural pathways to cope with challenges.
I like this idea because I sometimes think I see the future in my dreams. It's a crazy idea I know but I guess I like thinking it. This started when I drank a bottle of mugwort beer that had been given to my partner but she couldn't have it as she was pregnant. I drank it and had the most vivid dreams but I won't bore you with the details.
Since then I've had more dreams that seem prophetic but also some I hope aren't. Like after my first child was born I had a heap of dreams where he died or suffered accidents and I guess it was either a sign of my subconscious coping with my new role or it was a way of preparing me for the possibility I will need to react to a seriously challenging circumstance.
Dreams are weird.
I read a theory that dreams help us prepare, like some teaching tool for unlikely events. It cited that many people talk after accidents of how it was a dream-like experience. I guess this would be a way for the brain to create neural pathways to cope with challenges.
I like this idea because I sometimes think I see the future in my dreams. It's a crazy idea I know but I guess I like thinking it. This started when I drank a bottle of mugwort beer that had been given to my partner but she couldn't have it as she was pregnant. I drank it and had the most vivid dreams but I won't bore you with the details.
Since then I've had more dreams that seem prophetic but also some I hope aren't. Like after my first child was born I had a heap of dreams where he died or suffered accidents and I guess it was either a sign of my subconscious coping with my new role or it was a way of preparing me for the possibility I will need to react to a seriously challenging circumstance.
Dreams are weird.
Shure shot
Having argued in an earlier post that microphones are fetishised, not just by sound engineers but also the makers of music film clips, I thought I'd embrace the concept in a photograph.
Foxy effect
Another Firefox cut-up, really liking this effect. Pic from Nottingham Forest, where I was surprised to find a couple of fans.
Box Bum
Here's a pic I took for work printed in a Cooma newspaper today. I like the typo in the caption :)
SEOh-no
Search engines can bring unexpected results, like how Google has decided to make The Canberra Times look like it's moralising on the debate about paedophillic imagery.
Reminds me of a story I was going to write about a guy who gets killed by an angry mob after search engine results paint him as a paedophile.
Things to do in Albury when you're dead
Apparently the coffin here fell out of the back of the hearse while going around a corner. Guess the corpse wasn't ready to go!
Beauty in dial-up
This is an image from Boing Boing that's been given the Firefox 3 on dial-up treatment. It's a cool effect, wonder what it looks like on naked women?
The Dark Knight
I saw the new Batman movie yesterday and, once again, I marvel at how Christopher Nolan and his writing partner brother have reinterpreted the superhero to comment on contemporary issues.
In Batman Begins they rewrote the cornerstone of the Batman story by having Bruce Wayne's father shot by a crim who was then assassinated outside court, like the way Lee Harvey Oswald was killed by Jack Ruby after appearing in court for shooting US president John F Kennedy. At the time I couldn't understand why they'd want to make Batman a metaphor for the president but after the second film I got an idea.
Batman is the most flawed of the well-known superheroes, a vigilante prone to excessive violence in some of the more adult graphic novels like Frank Miller's Dark Knight. As Bruce Wayne he's a playboy with wealth and power who acts like he's living up the bachelor lifestyle. As Batman he thinks he's above the law, able to act where authorities are unable.
The presidential comparisons continue in The Dark Knight when Bruce Wayne arrives at a party triumphantly stepping out of a helicopter in a moment that reminded me of George W Bush's 'mission accomplished' press conference.
One of the best things Nolan added to the Batman story was in the first film when Bruce Wayne's father explained his charitable actions as noblesse oblige, the French term referring to the honorable and benevolent behavior required of persons of noble birth. It took the idea in Sam Raimi's Spiderman movie that "with great power comes great responsibility" and used it to give a little bit more credibility to the motivation for becoming a masked crime fighter. I also liked how he made Batman a ninja because they've also been whitewashed as freedom fighters.
In the new film The Joker makes terror videos where he humiliates hostages before killing them and gets the footage screened on the news to terrorise the citizens of Gotham City. Batman uses extensive wiretapping and undertakes an extreme rendition that would do the CIA proud. And there's a bit of the War on Terror in how passengers are held hostage.
I guess the idea of using a JFK reference points to this heavily idealised president as being the model by which all those since are judged.
Anyway, I'm going to rewatch the films and think about these comparisons further. They're good fun and the sounds are also fantastic.
PS - I just did a search and see Andrew Bolt has already viewed Batman in a similar light and, as much as I don't want Batman to be Bush, I think it's great to see moral ambiguity in an onscreen hero - especially in an American film.
PPS - I think Andrew Bolt makes a very convenient and self-serving argument. For a start, in rewriting The Joker's role in the Batman story, it's not so clear to say the two are representations of Osama Bin Laden and George W Bush. Where's the scene where it's revealed that Batman's father profited from supporting The Joker earlier in his criminal career?
If the two characters are different sides of the same coin, it's because the Harvey Dent character shows they are still the same coin. The film goes to great lengths to show that it's human nature to perceive this good/evil binary and clearly shows that Batman is losing his moral ground and becoming a criminal. This is why Batman must run at the end and Harvey Dent is made into the hero - it's the simple explanation that the people of Gotham need to get on with their lives and act like humans.
Humanity is a very thin veneer on an animal that still responds to base instincts that are now given the guise of modern trappings. (Adam Curtis' documentaries The Power of Nightmares and Century of the Self cover the two themes I've raised here brilliantly and are thought-provoking and highly recommended viewing.)
It seems to me that Andrew Bolt's criticism of Tony Coady exemplifies this need for complex actions to be shown in a good versus evil light. Yes, bombing Japan helped end the war but I'd guess that there would be many people who still view this action as "an act of terrorism far greater than any single act of terrorism since by non-state actors". History is written by the victor and personally I think the US, like Batman in The Dark Knight, is struggling to maintain the moral high ground in the War on Terror because it's obvious that they have had a role in creating their enemies. After all, the US provided Saddam Hussein with chemical weapons and funded Osama Bin Laden when it suited their national interests. It also suited their national interests to create the fiction that these two figures were working together as part of the so-called 'intelligence' used to justify invading Iraq.
If there's anything to be learned from Batman it's that people want simple narratives with a good guy and a bad guy when reality is much more complicated. I'd guess that Andrew Bolt knows this all too well.
In Batman Begins they rewrote the cornerstone of the Batman story by having Bruce Wayne's father shot by a crim who was then assassinated outside court, like the way Lee Harvey Oswald was killed by Jack Ruby after appearing in court for shooting US president John F Kennedy. At the time I couldn't understand why they'd want to make Batman a metaphor for the president but after the second film I got an idea.
Batman is the most flawed of the well-known superheroes, a vigilante prone to excessive violence in some of the more adult graphic novels like Frank Miller's Dark Knight. As Bruce Wayne he's a playboy with wealth and power who acts like he's living up the bachelor lifestyle. As Batman he thinks he's above the law, able to act where authorities are unable.
The presidential comparisons continue in The Dark Knight when Bruce Wayne arrives at a party triumphantly stepping out of a helicopter in a moment that reminded me of George W Bush's 'mission accomplished' press conference.
One of the best things Nolan added to the Batman story was in the first film when Bruce Wayne's father explained his charitable actions as noblesse oblige, the French term referring to the honorable and benevolent behavior required of persons of noble birth. It took the idea in Sam Raimi's Spiderman movie that "with great power comes great responsibility" and used it to give a little bit more credibility to the motivation for becoming a masked crime fighter. I also liked how he made Batman a ninja because they've also been whitewashed as freedom fighters.
In the new film The Joker makes terror videos where he humiliates hostages before killing them and gets the footage screened on the news to terrorise the citizens of Gotham City. Batman uses extensive wiretapping and undertakes an extreme rendition that would do the CIA proud. And there's a bit of the War on Terror in how passengers are held hostage.
I guess the idea of using a JFK reference points to this heavily idealised president as being the model by which all those since are judged.
Anyway, I'm going to rewatch the films and think about these comparisons further. They're good fun and the sounds are also fantastic.
PS - I just did a search and see Andrew Bolt has already viewed Batman in a similar light and, as much as I don't want Batman to be Bush, I think it's great to see moral ambiguity in an onscreen hero - especially in an American film.
PPS - I think Andrew Bolt makes a very convenient and self-serving argument. For a start, in rewriting The Joker's role in the Batman story, it's not so clear to say the two are representations of Osama Bin Laden and George W Bush. Where's the scene where it's revealed that Batman's father profited from supporting The Joker earlier in his criminal career?
If the two characters are different sides of the same coin, it's because the Harvey Dent character shows they are still the same coin. The film goes to great lengths to show that it's human nature to perceive this good/evil binary and clearly shows that Batman is losing his moral ground and becoming a criminal. This is why Batman must run at the end and Harvey Dent is made into the hero - it's the simple explanation that the people of Gotham need to get on with their lives and act like humans.
Humanity is a very thin veneer on an animal that still responds to base instincts that are now given the guise of modern trappings. (Adam Curtis' documentaries The Power of Nightmares and Century of the Self cover the two themes I've raised here brilliantly and are thought-provoking and highly recommended viewing.)
It seems to me that Andrew Bolt's criticism of Tony Coady exemplifies this need for complex actions to be shown in a good versus evil light. Yes, bombing Japan helped end the war but I'd guess that there would be many people who still view this action as "an act of terrorism far greater than any single act of terrorism since by non-state actors". History is written by the victor and personally I think the US, like Batman in The Dark Knight, is struggling to maintain the moral high ground in the War on Terror because it's obvious that they have had a role in creating their enemies. After all, the US provided Saddam Hussein with chemical weapons and funded Osama Bin Laden when it suited their national interests. It also suited their national interests to create the fiction that these two figures were working together as part of the so-called 'intelligence' used to justify invading Iraq.
If there's anything to be learned from Batman it's that people want simple narratives with a good guy and a bad guy when reality is much more complicated. I'd guess that Andrew Bolt knows this all too well.
All to briefs
Now, let's turn our attention from universities to underpants.
Some years ago my friend Emily confided to me that she felt more confident when wearing good underwear. Ever since I've often reflected on this, probably partly because I was always keen to see Emily in her underwear.
At the time I thought it explained how deep her commitment was for aesthetics. Later, while studying feminism at university, I wondered if it was an example of femininity as masquerade, the argument that being a woman in Western society is largely a matter or wearing the right combination of make-up, clothing and attitude or something. I think this was in Judith Butler's discussion of Joan Riviere.
Anyway, for me underwear has largely been a practical choice. It's something I rarely share with anyone and, when it's serving its function, it's out of sight and mostly out of my mind. For this reason I'm often amazed at how much underwear costs, it seems exorbitant the idea of spending more than a few dollars. So I was a bit cross when one former girlfriend named stole a pair of my boxer shorts as a souvenir and, when the opportunity presented itself, I stole them back.
Boxer shorts have been my choice of undergarment for the last decade or so. I like the looseness and, when I learned I had a low sperm count while writing an article on donor insemination, it seemed a healthy option too.
Recently my partner fell pregnant with our third child and I began to get annoyed at how the cheap boxer shorts I'd bought were becoming uncomfortable, the elastic waistband was becoming abrasive because the manufacturers have been saving on cotton by not folding it over at the top and the waistband would get those little balls. (If you know what I mean!) So the option of briefs, where you can buy seven pairs for less than $10, started to appeal to me.
I was amazed to discover they also appeal to my partner. As soon as I tried on a pair and asked her opinion, she started acting very affectionately and said she'd always preferred briefs. It's been nearly a couple of months now and I'm still amused how she'll stop what she's doing to watch me walk to the shower in my new undies.
I can take confidence from that.
Another four minutes
After more weeks of watching Timbaland, Timberlake and Madonna in the single Four Minutes, I've come to appreciate it a bit more and reckon I might have been a bit harsh in my earlier assessment.
This reevaluation is in part because my son has been telling me how much he likes it and I like hearing him discuss Madonna in the same terms he uses for discussing superheroes because, let's face it, Madonna is a modern superhero and she's still raising the bar for women after more than two decades. So the idea of her saving the world is starting to make sense and I've started to enjoy this cartoon aspect of the chorus.
I also liked hearing my partner imitate the way Timberlake says 'Madonna'. I know elsewhere in the song his vocals are treated like a turntable but he has this natural ability to sound like one too. The fast/slow/fast cadence he employs when saying Ma-dohh-na is a good example of drawing inspiration from beatboxing I reckon.
The other thing is that I've got an interpretation of the film clip to share.
There's this bit in the clip early on where you see a painting hanging on a wall and if you look it's like a boyish young man in a pair of rubber shorts, which would fit with all the fetishistic imagery Madonna uses in her clips.
When you pause on one of the few frames in which it appears you can see it's a painting that seems to show a young black man emerging from a peeling layer of lighter coloured flesh and the shorts are the pinker shade of another layer of flesh.
I like the idea that this could illustrate how there are no human races, only one race with varying shades of tan. In the context of this clip, however, I think it illustrates the idea that Timbaland is bringing a primal and black (in the African American sense) groove to the track and Madonna, who has basically been described as a strap-on by Aphex Twin, is caught up in the sheer pervasiveness of the Timbaland sound. It acknowledges the huge influence he's had on popular music.
This idea makes sense of the blackness that's pursuing Madonna and Timberlake throughout the clip, cutting through the extras over the course of four minutes and catching our two heroes right at the end. The blackness is the unavoidably funky Timbaland beat that the man himself introduces in a black setting at the beginning.
(And, I should acknowledge, the thing that really spelt out how black the Timbaland sound is was the film clip for his tune with Flo Rida, Elevator. It seems there's only one white face in the film clip, the boyish looking DJ. No doubt that's deliberate. A bit like the recent Soulja Boy clip for Donk, which I guess is about arses, where there's only one white face among the young black folk and he's an older looking bloke. It's like an inversion of all those politically correct sitcoms, ads, university prospecti and even girl groups like the Spice Girls where there's one black face among an otherwise white group.)
I'd guess that Madonna has only got four minutes to make the most of Timbaland's oversaturated sound because, let's face it, American R&B and commercial hip hop are really struggling at the moment. I reckon you can see the trend is moving from the 'boom-tee-boom' sound the Timbaland typified toward something more like four on the floor doof of European dance music. In part this is a natural progression for the super compressed beats that started the mastering wars because it is the most effective way for music to move a speaker, as the push of a bass drum gets to use the suck of sidechained compression on the pull of the upbeat. The other thing is it makes it easy for DJs to mix, for bootleggers to mash-up and for the divide between raves and clubs to be overcome. It also fits with the way R&B have adopted autotune used heavily to sound like a vocoder. Just listen to tracks like Chris Brown's Forever or Ne-yo's Closer for examples of both the doof beat and the robot trend in vocals.
However, I still reckon tracks like Four Minutes would sound better if performed on real instruments. Like if the synth brass were replaced with an actual brass marching band. If Madonna had jumped on the Daptones sound like Amy Winehouse did then she'd really be in the cheerleader position for saving the world IMO.
This reevaluation is in part because my son has been telling me how much he likes it and I like hearing him discuss Madonna in the same terms he uses for discussing superheroes because, let's face it, Madonna is a modern superhero and she's still raising the bar for women after more than two decades. So the idea of her saving the world is starting to make sense and I've started to enjoy this cartoon aspect of the chorus.
I also liked hearing my partner imitate the way Timberlake says 'Madonna'. I know elsewhere in the song his vocals are treated like a turntable but he has this natural ability to sound like one too. The fast/slow/fast cadence he employs when saying Ma-dohh-na is a good example of drawing inspiration from beatboxing I reckon.
The other thing is that I've got an interpretation of the film clip to share.
There's this bit in the clip early on where you see a painting hanging on a wall and if you look it's like a boyish young man in a pair of rubber shorts, which would fit with all the fetishistic imagery Madonna uses in her clips.
When you pause on one of the few frames in which it appears you can see it's a painting that seems to show a young black man emerging from a peeling layer of lighter coloured flesh and the shorts are the pinker shade of another layer of flesh.
I like the idea that this could illustrate how there are no human races, only one race with varying shades of tan. In the context of this clip, however, I think it illustrates the idea that Timbaland is bringing a primal and black (in the African American sense) groove to the track and Madonna, who has basically been described as a strap-on by Aphex Twin, is caught up in the sheer pervasiveness of the Timbaland sound. It acknowledges the huge influence he's had on popular music.
This idea makes sense of the blackness that's pursuing Madonna and Timberlake throughout the clip, cutting through the extras over the course of four minutes and catching our two heroes right at the end. The blackness is the unavoidably funky Timbaland beat that the man himself introduces in a black setting at the beginning.
(And, I should acknowledge, the thing that really spelt out how black the Timbaland sound is was the film clip for his tune with Flo Rida, Elevator. It seems there's only one white face in the film clip, the boyish looking DJ. No doubt that's deliberate. A bit like the recent Soulja Boy clip for Donk, which I guess is about arses, where there's only one white face among the young black folk and he's an older looking bloke. It's like an inversion of all those politically correct sitcoms, ads, university prospecti and even girl groups like the Spice Girls where there's one black face among an otherwise white group.)
I'd guess that Madonna has only got four minutes to make the most of Timbaland's oversaturated sound because, let's face it, American R&B and commercial hip hop are really struggling at the moment. I reckon you can see the trend is moving from the 'boom-tee-boom' sound the Timbaland typified toward something more like four on the floor doof of European dance music. In part this is a natural progression for the super compressed beats that started the mastering wars because it is the most effective way for music to move a speaker, as the push of a bass drum gets to use the suck of sidechained compression on the pull of the upbeat. The other thing is it makes it easy for DJs to mix, for bootleggers to mash-up and for the divide between raves and clubs to be overcome. It also fits with the way R&B have adopted autotune used heavily to sound like a vocoder. Just listen to tracks like Chris Brown's Forever or Ne-yo's Closer for examples of both the doof beat and the robot trend in vocals.
However, I still reckon tracks like Four Minutes would sound better if performed on real instruments. Like if the synth brass were replaced with an actual brass marching band. If Madonna had jumped on the Daptones sound like Amy Winehouse did then she'd really be in the cheerleader position for saving the world IMO.
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