Monday, November 28
What the hell? Cold?
Yep, the high was 69 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday and about the same today. And, yes, that's cold for El Centro, even though it sounds like a nice warm day for November in most parts of the country--including most desert areas, which are actually rather chilly during the winter (especially at night). El Centro is in what is called the "low desert" in California, meaning that we're at or below sea level and, hence, don't get the really cold temperatures that folks in the "high desert" get on a regular basis. A friend of mine works in Barstow (between San Bernardino and Las Vegas) and regularly runs into snow and ice during the winter--even though the temperatures in the summer there are easily the equivalent of El Centro's 110-115 degrees.
Oh, and the SIQ has hovered around the 20s lately--some manure smells and other nasty odors, but always faint and easy to ignore. That's another benefit of the cold weather!
More thoughts (since I haven't posted for a while):
Oh, and the SIQ has hovered around the 20s lately--some manure smells and other nasty odors, but always faint and easy to ignore. That's another benefit of the cold weather!
More thoughts (since I haven't posted for a while):
- I've been admiring The White Stripes from afar for a while now, liking their music but not entirely being sure as to why. Then I bought Get Behind Me Satan and it clicked: they are the garage rock equivalent of a 12k/Line artist like Richard Chartier, Taylor Deupree, or Christopher Willits. They are minimalist--that is assured: two people, plays drums and the other plays the guitar (mostly) and sings. No bass or other accoutrements are allowed (though, as with all great artists, they know when to break their own rules). The difference between the Stripes and the 12k guys is simply that the Stripes choose to center their music in and around the blues tradition, whereas the 12k guys are working from a more abstract, academic tradition. Both rock in their own ways and both are experimental minimalists, but people pay to see the Stripes because Meg White keeps a funky beat and Taylor Deupree doesn't.
- I have a new job--I'm the Distance Education Coordinator for Imperial Valley College. That means I don't teach as much and I oversee all matters concerning online education at the school. The program is just beginning, so there's lots to do, and I'm eager to make the program a success. It's a bit scary to leave my first tenure-track job, but I feel comfortable doing it now (rather than later) because I'm not actually leaving the school where I'm working and because I will be able to return to that job in a few years (if all goes well).
- Hope all Americans had a happy thanksgiving. This holiday is one of the few things the US ever got right, I think--a day of reflection and celebration and massive quantities of food. It's fun! I think that's why many of my students tell me that they celebrate Thanksgiving by having a turkey dinner at their relatives' houses in Mexico--even though it's not a holiday in Mexico! My theory is: if the holiday is fun, it works! Hell, if Islam had a holiday half as fun as Thanksgiving or Christmas, people would be jumping off the Christian bandwagon left and right. And, yes, that's the problem with atheism: no fun holidays. Atheists and pagans should get together and figure out a holiday they can share--and it's not Halloween (atheists don't believe in Halloween).
Sunday, November 20
Numbers Station Signal
Here's the link to the Numbers Station signal I recorded a few days ago. Let me know what you think. By the way, the snapping sound is me (accident).
Friday, November 18
Worth every penny
On November 18, 2005, 1000 GMT, on 7887 of the shortwave band, I finally heard a perfectly audible, perfectly tuned numbers station broadcast. Now, I have written about numbers stations on many occasions, and on one of those occasions I wrote that I had actually heard a numbers station recording and had recorded it. However, that recording was woefully weak, more noise than signal. I was using a Grundig YB-400PE, and while it is a good little machine, it's woefully inadequate when it comes to weak signals like most numbers station broadcasts.
However, today, I finally received my Grundig Satellit 800, the mother of all portatop shortwave receivers, the monster I'd wanted to get ever since I first heard The Conet Project (but didn't get because I didn't want to shell out the cash and because, when my wife and I were living in an apartment, the reception for shortwave was so low that I just didn't think it was worth it). Now we have a house, however, so I figured I'd indulge myself and get one. So, right away, I set it up in one of our spare rooms, flipped it on, and was instantly struck by the amazing variety of signals I was able to receive--despite having no antenna other than the whip comes with the device. I was able to pick up BBC broadcasts from Asia, the news from Austrailia, the German DeutscheWelle news broadcast, a Japanese broadcast of some sort, and, mother of 'em all, a Cuban numbers station signal. I'm guessing it is Cuban because it was in Spanish. It was simply a female voice reading off a list of numbers (what else did you expect from a numbers station broadcast?); it's nothing new for shortwave and DX fans, but it's a milestone for me--and, of course, I recorded it. I want to clean the recording up a bit (remove some of the noise and make it clearer and sharper), and then I'm posting it right here--so stay tuned, all one of you out there who actually care or even understand what I'm talking about.
However, today, I finally received my Grundig Satellit 800, the mother of all portatop shortwave receivers, the monster I'd wanted to get ever since I first heard The Conet Project (but didn't get because I didn't want to shell out the cash and because, when my wife and I were living in an apartment, the reception for shortwave was so low that I just didn't think it was worth it). Now we have a house, however, so I figured I'd indulge myself and get one. So, right away, I set it up in one of our spare rooms, flipped it on, and was instantly struck by the amazing variety of signals I was able to receive--despite having no antenna other than the whip comes with the device. I was able to pick up BBC broadcasts from Asia, the news from Austrailia, the German DeutscheWelle news broadcast, a Japanese broadcast of some sort, and, mother of 'em all, a Cuban numbers station signal. I'm guessing it is Cuban because it was in Spanish. It was simply a female voice reading off a list of numbers (what else did you expect from a numbers station broadcast?); it's nothing new for shortwave and DX fans, but it's a milestone for me--and, of course, I recorded it. I want to clean the recording up a bit (remove some of the noise and make it clearer and sharper), and then I'm posting it right here--so stay tuned, all one of you out there who actually care or even understand what I'm talking about.
Monday, November 14
"God? He is ze biggest bitch of them all."--The Mole
Jarhead
SIQ: 49 (lots of smoke smells from fireplaces--I hope--and some alfalfa wafting around in the breeze)
I saw Jarhead last night in El Centro. It's a HUGE movie around here because it was filmed in and around the area. The cast and crew stayed at a hotel about two blocks away from me (though I didn't pay much attention to it at the time). Jamie Foxx apparently worked out at the same gym my brother goes to, which meant that, when my mom told the story, it became, "Doug worked out with Jamie Foxx." A lot of my students were extras in the movie, which meant that all of a sudden one day last February all the guys in my classes came in with shaved heads (you know--jarheads). Also, one of the closing scenes in the film--the parade when they come home--was filmed on Main Street in El Centro. So it's a big film here for lots of reasons.
Anyways, I came into the film not expecting much--the reviews were mediocre at best. I expected it to no match for the other Gulf War film, Three Kings. That film was inventive, clever, intelligent, and pointed in its commentary on the war. Jarhead was different, certainly. It's not really a commentary on the war at all; if anything, it's a commentary on a single person's experience in the war. And, as a commentary on a single person's experience in the war, it's damn good. It has a singular vision that is rare in war films--it doesn't cover the war as much as it covers the actions of one person trying not to go crazy with boredom and loneliness during a situation that eventually turned into a very, very brief war.
Most critics, I think, wanted a critique on the war--they wanted an Apocalypse Now moment that revealed the futility of war and all that it destroys. My wife and I call that a "Where is your god now?" ending, after The Mole's wonderful line at the end of South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut. It's a moment that usually reveals the epiphany of the main character as he/she recognizes the universe (embodied in warfare) as the unfair, bitter, pointless place it obviously is. Most critics didn't see this sort of moment in Jarhead--but it's there, only it's not the moment they wanted. It's the moment at the end of the film, when the war has just ended and our heros have just come across their comrades dancing around a fire (like the pagans in The Wicker Man). Our heros are pissed off because they went through the entire war without firing a single shot (even though they were sharpshooters). Everyone is dancing and singing and laughing around them; they look at each other, and then they get their guns out and fire round after round into the air. It's a moment where they characters say, "We didn't kill anyone, but we did survive, so screw it--let's just shoot." It's not the greatest "Where is your god now?" moment in the world, and it says nothing whatsoever about the war's futility--but it does give the characters a certain distance from their own experiences and it gives them the release they need at that point.
And that's the key: the moment is specifically tied to these characters. It's their story, not the country's story or the world's story. They live it and experience it and survive it--and that's it.
As I said before, the movie this film is going to be linked with is David O. Russell's Three Kings, a great film with some great acting, great dialogue, and a significant message behind it. What this movie also has, however, is a contrived plot device--some mystery gold the heros want to steal. That device lowers the movie to the level of a caper--and, to its credit, manages to make the caper elements within the movie resonate far beyond the boundaries of a typical war or caper film. Still, it IS contrived. Jarhead, on the other hand, is about as original a narrative (at least for a war movie) as you're likely to experience. It's about (basically) young, dumb guys being trained to kill and then waiting and waiting for their chance to kill, only to not even get a chance to fire a weapon because the war is over so quickly. It's a minimalist narrative, with no contrivance or any other cloud to dissipate the central focus.
Jarhead doesn't have the depth and the creativity of Three Kings, but it has an honest, piercing narrative that really gets to the heart of the war experience. For this reason, I think the movie will be around for a very long time.
I saw Jarhead last night in El Centro. It's a HUGE movie around here because it was filmed in and around the area. The cast and crew stayed at a hotel about two blocks away from me (though I didn't pay much attention to it at the time). Jamie Foxx apparently worked out at the same gym my brother goes to, which meant that, when my mom told the story, it became, "Doug worked out with Jamie Foxx." A lot of my students were extras in the movie, which meant that all of a sudden one day last February all the guys in my classes came in with shaved heads (you know--jarheads). Also, one of the closing scenes in the film--the parade when they come home--was filmed on Main Street in El Centro. So it's a big film here for lots of reasons.
Anyways, I came into the film not expecting much--the reviews were mediocre at best. I expected it to no match for the other Gulf War film, Three Kings. That film was inventive, clever, intelligent, and pointed in its commentary on the war. Jarhead was different, certainly. It's not really a commentary on the war at all; if anything, it's a commentary on a single person's experience in the war. And, as a commentary on a single person's experience in the war, it's damn good. It has a singular vision that is rare in war films--it doesn't cover the war as much as it covers the actions of one person trying not to go crazy with boredom and loneliness during a situation that eventually turned into a very, very brief war.
Most critics, I think, wanted a critique on the war--they wanted an Apocalypse Now moment that revealed the futility of war and all that it destroys. My wife and I call that a "Where is your god now?" ending, after The Mole's wonderful line at the end of South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut. It's a moment that usually reveals the epiphany of the main character as he/she recognizes the universe (embodied in warfare) as the unfair, bitter, pointless place it obviously is. Most critics didn't see this sort of moment in Jarhead--but it's there, only it's not the moment they wanted. It's the moment at the end of the film, when the war has just ended and our heros have just come across their comrades dancing around a fire (like the pagans in The Wicker Man). Our heros are pissed off because they went through the entire war without firing a single shot (even though they were sharpshooters). Everyone is dancing and singing and laughing around them; they look at each other, and then they get their guns out and fire round after round into the air. It's a moment where they characters say, "We didn't kill anyone, but we did survive, so screw it--let's just shoot." It's not the greatest "Where is your god now?" moment in the world, and it says nothing whatsoever about the war's futility--but it does give the characters a certain distance from their own experiences and it gives them the release they need at that point.
And that's the key: the moment is specifically tied to these characters. It's their story, not the country's story or the world's story. They live it and experience it and survive it--and that's it.
As I said before, the movie this film is going to be linked with is David O. Russell's Three Kings, a great film with some great acting, great dialogue, and a significant message behind it. What this movie also has, however, is a contrived plot device--some mystery gold the heros want to steal. That device lowers the movie to the level of a caper--and, to its credit, manages to make the caper elements within the movie resonate far beyond the boundaries of a typical war or caper film. Still, it IS contrived. Jarhead, on the other hand, is about as original a narrative (at least for a war movie) as you're likely to experience. It's about (basically) young, dumb guys being trained to kill and then waiting and waiting for their chance to kill, only to not even get a chance to fire a weapon because the war is over so quickly. It's a minimalist narrative, with no contrivance or any other cloud to dissipate the central focus.
Jarhead doesn't have the depth and the creativity of Three Kings, but it has an honest, piercing narrative that really gets to the heart of the war experience. For this reason, I think the movie will be around for a very long time.
Wednesday, November 9
Boards of Canada, The Campfire Headphase
I know I said I wasn't going to write more reviews for a while, but I got Boards of Canada's latest, The Campfire Headphase, and I have to say something about it. I thought their previous work, Geogaddi, was a lot of fun to listen to...for about a week. Then it bored me. That wasn't the case with Music Has the Right to Children, which, although it does now seem slightly dated (the beats sound a bit too circa 1998), is still a fixture on my ipod and something I still hearken back to when I'm in a certain mood (read: when I'm sleepy and want to think at the same time).
I think the difference between Geogaddi and Music Has the Right to Children is a bit like the difference between Richard Rodriguez's El Mariachi and Desperado. They're both basically the same movie, but El Mariachi was made for about $50 and Desperado was made for millions. The differences in story and characters were negligible, but El Mariachi was rough and unpolished and (therefore) lots of fun while Desperado was expensive and glossy and (therefore) boring. Yes, that's it: the more money you throw at something, the more the money becomes the point of the work. Do something on a shoestring budget and you can sometimes (not always) achieve something truly unique because you (as an artist) are forced to economize and come up with new and unique ways to create a work of art (like the way Rodriguez used a shopping cart for tracking shots).
I don't know if Boards of Canada were working on a shoestring budget for their first work, but I'm willing to guess that they had new equipment for Geogaddi--and that equipment ended up being the point of Geogaddi. The music was basically the same, but it was more clever, more about the twiddling effects and fun little asides than about creating memorable melodies and striking evocative moods. It was dull.
So now there's The Campfire Headphase, and I think it owes much more to Music Has the Right to Children than to Geogaddi, if only because it sounds rougher, more unpolished, and more atmospherics than its predecessor. There's a decided thematic link to the sounds and memories of childhood, just as on the earlier works, and in that respect the work is a bit repetitive. But repetition is not really a huge problem--heck, most artists only create one or two unique ideas and then continually refine and revise those ideas in all subsequent works (I'm looking at you, Bruce Springsteen). B of C are just learning from past mistakes, focusing on what they do best, and churning out new works that play on and improve upon what they've done before. It's a fun work, and I encourage all of you to check it out.
Tuesday, November 8
Nostalgia for the Mid-90s
SIQ: 28 (strong alfalfa smell but not too annoying).
Yep, the late 90s... that was a good time for music. For the world, really. A competent person was president in the United States. The economies of the world were, by and large, very strong. And music was fucking amazing. I've been digging through my CDs for the past few days trying to dig up my "old fossils" from 1998 or so...things like Massive Attack's Mezzanine (along with Blue Lines, of course), Portishead's self-titled second album, Boards of Canada's Music Has the Right to Children, Tricky's Maxinquaye (yes, I once had the web's first Tricky site, which I gave up once I realized that others were doing a better job than I at keeping the artist relevant), and many others. This is some great music--a rich blend of styles and ideas all mixed around drug and dub beats. These artists are still around (well, save Portishead, which seems to have vanished from the earth), but their more recent music is far removed from the laid-back and intelligent music they made when Clinton was in power and Blair wasn't a lapdog. Is there a connection between the political situation in the late 90s and the good music from that decade? Does it extend to this rather horrible period in history? Probably--to some extent. Or was that period in the 90s just a pinnacle for my own enjoyment of popular music--when I thought popular music was actually interesting and relevant?
And so let me say it, if no one else will...
I miss the 90s.
Yep, the late 90s... that was a good time for music. For the world, really. A competent person was president in the United States. The economies of the world were, by and large, very strong. And music was fucking amazing. I've been digging through my CDs for the past few days trying to dig up my "old fossils" from 1998 or so...things like Massive Attack's Mezzanine (along with Blue Lines, of course), Portishead's self-titled second album, Boards of Canada's Music Has the Right to Children, Tricky's Maxinquaye (yes, I once had the web's first Tricky site, which I gave up once I realized that others were doing a better job than I at keeping the artist relevant), and many others. This is some great music--a rich blend of styles and ideas all mixed around drug and dub beats. These artists are still around (well, save Portishead, which seems to have vanished from the earth), but their more recent music is far removed from the laid-back and intelligent music they made when Clinton was in power and Blair wasn't a lapdog. Is there a connection between the political situation in the late 90s and the good music from that decade? Does it extend to this rather horrible period in history? Probably--to some extent. Or was that period in the 90s just a pinnacle for my own enjoyment of popular music--when I thought popular music was actually interesting and relevant?
And so let me say it, if no one else will...
I miss the 90s.
Monday, November 7
Cabbage?
As of 6:50 PM, the SIQ scale is up to 49. It smells like boiled cabbage, according to my wife. Oddly, the smell was almost nonexistent a few hours ago when we took a walk. But the wind shifted, the clouds and fog rolled in, and in came the stench.
Sunday, November 6
SIQ Scale
El Centro is in the desert, but it's a desert that's almost entirely effaced by agriculture. The Colorado River provides lots of water for this area, and that water has transformed the Imperial Valley into a huge agricultural center. Now, the history of all this agriculture--and what it has done to the environment--will be the topic for another day. But one facet of agriculture in this area that I have to mention is the wide variety of smells that float over this city and region. Depending upon where you stand in this city, it can smell like boiled cabbage, super-sweet peanut butter, the most disgusting garbage ever conceived, and any one of a thousand other mostly-horrid smells.
Luckily, where my wife and I live, we're surrounded by trees and grass and a nice, happy park, so the smells usually don't filter into our backyard with any regularity. In the morning, at times, we'll smell peanut butter or boiled cabbage or a few other things, but it dissipates quickly. At other locations, however, the smells grow as the sun grows in the sky, making for some rather unpleasant experiences and making for a distinct desire to stay indoors.
The smells are basically from agriculture, so they are probably pretty familiar to anyone else who lives in an agricultural region. However, they're not all agriculture. Some are from the rather nasty smells that float through the valley in the form of the New River, one of the most polluted rivers in the country. Other smells waft down from the Salton Sea, which is where the New River empties. These are nasty smells, the garbage smells, and they make life in the valley rather irritating at times (though more irritating for people who live close to the sea, in towns like Westmoreland, Salton City, Niland, and Calipatria).
So I'm going to try and narrate the smells of the Imperial Valley for you on this site. I don't have a particularly vivid nasal palate. But I know what I smell and I can describe it, and I'm going to use two very simple rubrics for smell identification (or what I will call the Smell Intensity & Quality Scale):
So right now I'm in my house; outside, it's overcast and cool (in the low 70s, which is fairly cool for this area, actually). The SIQ reading right now is 9, which means I can smell fertilizer in the air, but it's not really unpleasant because the trees and grass surrounding me dominate.
Luckily, where my wife and I live, we're surrounded by trees and grass and a nice, happy park, so the smells usually don't filter into our backyard with any regularity. In the morning, at times, we'll smell peanut butter or boiled cabbage or a few other things, but it dissipates quickly. At other locations, however, the smells grow as the sun grows in the sky, making for some rather unpleasant experiences and making for a distinct desire to stay indoors.
The smells are basically from agriculture, so they are probably pretty familiar to anyone else who lives in an agricultural region. However, they're not all agriculture. Some are from the rather nasty smells that float through the valley in the form of the New River, one of the most polluted rivers in the country. Other smells waft down from the Salton Sea, which is where the New River empties. These are nasty smells, the garbage smells, and they make life in the valley rather irritating at times (though more irritating for people who live close to the sea, in towns like Westmoreland, Salton City, Niland, and Calipatria).
So I'm going to try and narrate the smells of the Imperial Valley for you on this site. I don't have a particularly vivid nasal palate. But I know what I smell and I can describe it, and I'm going to use two very simple rubrics for smell identification (or what I will call the Smell Intensity & Quality Scale):
- Smell Intensity: 1 (no smell) to 10 (eyes-watering, lungs burning)
- Smell Quality: 1 (pleasant smells, like grass or flowers) to 10 (disgusting, vomit-inducing, garbage smells)
So right now I'm in my house; outside, it's overcast and cool (in the low 70s, which is fairly cool for this area, actually). The SIQ reading right now is 9, which means I can smell fertilizer in the air, but it's not really unpleasant because the trees and grass surrounding me dominate.
