The Worst "Documentary" Ever

I'm reconsidering my affiliation with The Discovery Channel. And by "affiliation" I mean that I watch the channel and presume that the folks that run it know what they're doing and are truly interested in showing something that could qualify as a "discovery". But after I heard that they were going to "re-enact" Michael Jackson's autopsy, complete with sparkly glove, I started having second thoughts. Wait. What now?

Correct. The Discovery Channel, according to something called CBC News, was going to air a program that claimed "...to be a medical documentary re-enacting the autopsy performed on Michael Jackson." I don't even know what in the world that would consist of. But I DO know that the commercial that they aired for it showed a sparkly gloved hand poking out from under a white sheet. Behold!

Oh, that's real tasteful. Way to go Discovery Channel. What exactly was it that you were discovering during this episode? Was it to see how low you could really stoop? I believe we've discovered that it's quite a ways farther than anyone would have expected. Fortunately, they have "indefinitely postponed the broadcast" citing "...the start of hearings next week in the criminal case against Jackson's doctor and a request by the late superstar's estate as reasons for the postponement." Hmm.

I don't know if that's the real reason or if someone finally just came to their senses. I find it amazing that the whole thing made it from the idea stage all the way to the point where the thing was filmed and ready to go on the air! Think about it. How many different people would have had to have heard this bizarre idea and thought to themselves, "Yeah. This is a good idea. We should do this. We should do this fast before someone else gets the same idea and does it first." It would have had to have been several people thinking that this is a viable concept to air on The Discovery Channel. That's troubling in and of itself. I'd really like to talk to those folks who gave the go ahead on this. Just for a few minutes. I want to know what other sorts of things they think are good ideas. I'm sure it would be a very entertaining, albeit mind-boggling, conversation.

I'm sure that the next bad idea that they would come up with along this same ridiculous line of programming would be a re-enactment of the Elvis autopsy. Then a re-enactment of the Anna Nicole Smith autopsy. They'll have to implement Autopsy Wednesday. Each and every Wednesday, it's a different re-enactment of a celebrity autopsy. Don't miss the Gary Coleman autopsy! Tune in the week after that for the Buddy Holly autopsy! (In this silly scenario, I envision the morons at The Discovery Channel trying to reach out to all morons across the board who would even think of watching something like this.) And don't miss the season finale where they recreate the autopsy of the alien that crashed at Area 51!

Good Lord, Discovery Channel. I realize that you're not PBS or anything like that, but I truly expected more out of you. From now on, however, I will be expecting less. Not autopsy re-enactment less, but less.

Sundaze 1101

That means, don't be distracted by all the crazy nonsense that's presented by the media, don't let stupid politicians, greedy banksters or global fearmongerers distract you from what's really important and that is what have you to bring to (y)our well being. Everyone counts..despite what you have been led to believe.


Today on the New Years Daze afterparty i had to go for something utterly relaxing..it's not background music but atmosphere music, coined as ambient in years to come, now such can get chilly sometimes but not with Eno here, infact there's more structure than consciously noticable..but your unconscious does, and thats the beauty of it...relax and enjoy

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Brian Eno has featured several times at this blog so i'll keep it short here

Brian Peter George St. Jean le Baptiste de la Salle Eno, sometimes simply Eno, (born May 15, 1948), is an electronic musician who started his musical career with Roxy Music. He then went on to produce a number of highly eclectic and increasingly ambient electronic and acoustic albums. He is widely cited as coining the term "ambient music" in his Ambient series (Music for Airports, The Plateaux of Mirror, Day of Radiance and On Land). He collaborated with David Byrne, formerly of Talking Heads, on My Life in the Bush of Ghosts which was one of the first albums not in the rap or hip hop genres to extensively feature sampling. Eno collaborated with David Bowie as a writer and musician on Bowie's influential "Berlin trilogy" of albums, Low, Heroes and Lodger, on Bowie's later album 1. Outside, and on the song "I'm Afraid of Americans". Eno has also collaborated with Robert Fripp of King Crimson, Robert Wyatt on his Shleep CD, with Jon Hassell and with the German duo Cluster. Eno has acted as a producer for a number of bands, including U2 and James. He won the best producer award at the 1994 and 1996 BRIT awards. He is an innovator across many fields of music and recently he has collaborated on the development of the Koan algorithmic music generator. He has also been involved in the field of visual arts. In 1996 Brian Eno, and others, started the Long Now Foundation to educate the public into thinking about the very long term future of society. Brian Eno is also a columnist for the British newspaper, The Observer.

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The latter part of 1975 was a remarkably creative period for Brian Eno. With his masterpiece Another Green World, Eno began moving away from the structure and sound of pop music toward a more static instrumental model, influenced in part by Erik Satie and strongly informed by his prior collaborations with Robert Fripp. Recorded just a month after Another Green World, Discreet Music is his first full foray into what has become known as ambient music. Using the same system of two reel-to-reel tape recorders as No Pussyfooting and Evening Star, Eno was able to layer simple parts atop one another, resulting in a beautiful piece of music that never really changes but constantly evolves with the addition and decay of different parts. And while there were elements of noise and dissonance on the albums with Fripp, all the sounds here are calming and serene. The second half of the album deals with the same ideas of recurring themes and evolution but uses a different approach. Here, members of the Cockpit Ensemble use pieces of the score of Pachelbel's Canon in D Major, but the relation of these elements changes over time by having the parts slow at differing intervals or using different lengths of the musical score. The same notions of theme and constant variation appear, but without the aid of the tape delay system. The tones of the strings are vastly different from the synth tones of the title track, but the effect on the listener is the same, with the pieces delicately unfolding over time. Discreet Music's reputation as a groundbreaking and influential work is surpassed only by its placid beauty.



Discreet Music (75 125mb)

1 Discreet Music (30:35)
--Three Variations On The Canon In D Major By Johann Pachelbel
2 Fullness Of Wind (9:57)
3 French Catalogues (5:18)
4 Brutal Ardour (8:17)

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Recorded intermittently between 1975 and 1978, Music for Films compiles moody, instrumental electronic pieces intended as soundtrack material for imaginary motion pictures; the songs are brief and fragmentary, ranging from the haunting to the luminous, densely layered.

Although it's his Music For Airports album, his work with Roxy Music, and his collaborations with David Byrne and other artists are the ones that have been talked about the most, this is an album that is just as good in my opinion (which is a collaboration with many different people as well). Comprised of work recorded over a 2-year period of time, some of the 18 tracks were actually used in films, while others were not. The short tracks (ranging from one and a half minutes to just over four) are all fairly stripped-down ambient, but unlike the aforementioned Music For Airports, never linger on enough to get to the point of being too repetitive. If anything, some of them feel like they end just as they're beginning. Perhaps it's just a generational difference that Eno prefers to keep things short, while many current ambient artist choose to stretch things out into longer, sprawling works. As mentioned before, Eno collaborates with lots of different people on the album and most of the contributions are that of one instrument in a track. Phil Collins, Robert Fripp, and John Cale (as well as several others) all add their respective touches to different tracks, and even though there are so many people working on the album (and so many different tracks), the album is surprisingly cohesive. The release starts out with a track that sounds very similar to something from Music For Airports, with it's chiming minimal sound, followed by one of the prettiest tracks "From The Same Hill." Over some warm, quiet washes of sound, a plucked acoustic guitar gives the track a simple, fragile sound. If you enjoy ambient music and want an idea of some of the roots of the genre, this is really one of those essential releases. Since the time that the pieces were composed (the late 70s), Eno has continued to create lots of music (as well as art installations and interactive pieces), but his early work proves that he has always been important as a musician and innovator.



Music For Films (78 93mb)

01 Aragon (1:36)
02 From The Same Hill (2:57)
03 Inland Sea (1:24)
04 Two Rapid Formations (3:22)
05 Slow Water (3:15)
06 Sparrowfall (1) (1:10)
07 Sparrowfall (2) (1:43)
08 Sparrowfall (3) (1:22)
09 Alternative 3 (3:11)
10 Quartz (2:01)
11 Events In Dense Fog (3:42)
12 'There Is Nobody' (1:43)
13 Patrolling Wire Borders (1:43)
14 A Measured Room (1:03)
15 Task Force (1:21)
16 M386 (2:50)
17 Strange Light (2:08)
18 Final Sunset (4:10)

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Happy New Year 2011!

Happy New Year! Or, Happy Saturday (if you tend to look at these things like I do and realize that there's not all that much 'new' going on just because two digits in the year have changed)!

Holy canoli, I did it. I posted at least once, every day, for the third year in a row. What is wrong with me? Oh, right, overly opinionated and quite amusing, that's it! I ended 2009 with almost 400posts and that works out to right around 1.13 posts per day. That's a lot. I don't care who you are, that's a lot. If you have almost 400 of something, you have a lot of that thing. And since I'm not one to be a slacker (well, I'm not one to be a slacker so that everyone knows that I'm a slacker. I might be lazy, but I'm crafty!), that is going to have to be the minimum number of posts for me for 2011. And judging from the 2010 debacles that have not yet ironed themselves out, I'm sure that won't seem like such a lofty goal come May or June when I've really got a full head of steam. (And with so many people still wondering if President Barry is a Muslim who was born in Kenya? (He isn't and he wasn't, by the way.) This blog will practically write itself! And on some days, that really wouldn't be such a bad idea.)

Well, this is all starting to sound a little self serving here, so I need to get to the point that I had meant to hit on to begin with. Pretty much, the only reason that I had for posting every single day for a year was simply just to see if I could. That and to get better at....whatever this is. That's just how I work. If I have an ongoing project, I'd prefer that I continue to improve it and get better at whatever it is that I'm doing. And I really wanted to get better at this...whatever this is. And the first year of doing that was work. The second year, while I thought it would be easier, was more work in some ways (I did not see that coming). And while I think that I have gotten better at it, I know that there's no way I could have done it (nor would there have been a reason for it) almost 400 times if it hadn't been for those of you who read this and have encouraged me along the way to keep it up (lest you actually have to hear me rant about something) via your comments, your readership, your emails or just telling me in person:

La Belle Canadienne, (My link to Canada, America's Hat); Remi, my biggest fan in Germany (I'm huge in Europe!); Irritated Tulsan (Some days, he's more irritated than I am!); Granny Ann, for her consistent readership and frequent comments (I love the comments!); My dear, dear friend Julie, for sharing this blog with other people, for leaving great comments and for helping me to think about things in different ways (ie, Christine O'Donnell and Glenn Beck); CW (who was probably the first to let me know that I might be on to something here); Gerard, my London link to all that is whores; Ruth, my UK link to everything but the whores (which is perfectly fine!); CA (who reads the posts, well...who reads the comments in bulk and loves the pictures!), Kate, for reassuring me from time to time that I am still at least a little funny; Scott, for being my newfound friend, on the blog and off; King of New York Hacks, for his consistent presence; Terrier, because what's not to like about someone who seems to be around 16 years old and follows a blog like this? And finally, AliceAmplified (who has helped shape my critical thinking skills, been an avid, yet blog-mocking, supporter as well as the best friend one could ever imagine. She also writes extremely well, which has left me wanting to learn how to express things as well and as concisely as she can. I can get wordy if I'm not careful.).

You guys all rule. Thank you. Thanks for reading. Thanks for commenting. Thanks for coming back. Just thanks.

May all of you have an incredibly awesome 2011.

~ Mare

Kristin Cavallari in Photos Sexy

Kristin Cavallari

Toni Braxton in sexy pictures

Toni Braxton

Joanna Krupa in Bikini

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Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!
Feliz año nuevo
Feliz Ano Novo
Bonne année
Buon Anno e tanti auguri
Kull 'aam wa-antum bikhayr
Aliheli'sdi Itse Udetiyvasadisv
Na MwakaMweru wi Gikeno
Feliĉan novan jaron
聖誕快樂 新年快樂 [圣诞快乐 新年快乐]
Bliain úr faoi shéan is faoi mise duit
Nava Varsh Ki Haardik Shubh Kaamnaayen
Ein gesundes neues Jahr
Mwaka Mwena
Pudhu Varusha Vaazhthukkal
Afe nhyia pa
Ufaaveri aa ahareh
Er sala we pîroz be
سال نو
С наступающим Новым Годом
šťastný nový rok
Manigong Bagong Taon sa inyong lahat
Feliç Any Nou
Yeni yılınızı kutlar, sağlık ve başarılar dileriz
نايا سال مبارک هو
Emnandi Nonyaka Omtsha Ozele Iintsikelelo
Subha Aluth Awrudhak Vewa
Chronia polla
Szczesliwego Nowego Roku
Kia pai te Tau Hou e heke mai nei
Shinnen omedeto goziamasu (クリスマスと新年おめでとうございます)
IHozhi Naghai
a manuia le Tausaga Fou
Paglaun Ukiutchiaq
Naya Saal Mubarak Ho

(International greetings courtesy of Omniglot and Jennifer's Polyglot Links; please note a few of the phrases may also contain Christmas greetings)