Pain makes for stronger memories, and last night’s performance of Hamlet for this year’s Shakespeare in the Park series will haunt me accordingly. It is hard to pin down precisely why migraines are so traumatic, compared to more serious ailments that threaten actual body integrity or, indeed, more intense pain from traumatic injury. Is it that they are localized within the inner space of the head, seemingly out of reach of comfort? That they are triggered by often unpredictable clusters of probabilities – this change in temperature, that delay in eating, some other slight to the circadian rhythm? That they magnify sense experience into maddening affronts, transmuting elemental light, sound, smell into staggering assaults? Or simply that they mete out an unmerited vengeance, as you can commonly do little more than endure them like stages of grief, anger leading to bargaining, to depression, and occasionally acceptance that one must simply wait and pray for the release of unconsciousness while aggrieved capillaries dilate back to their mundane configuration. Indeed, it seems the greatest injustice to wake from a hard-fought fevered delirium to find that despite finally achieving that occluding release of insensateness, that the pain mockingly remains.

So, what does that tell us about Hamlet? (more…)

So, how do you get out of your head? Isn’t that what we all desperately need as respite, a way to escape the incessant weight of being under your own ceaseless observation? Perhaps, as the Handsome Family put it:

“This is why people OD on pills/and jump from the/Golden Gate Bridge

Anything to feel weightless again”

Let’s go to a concert.

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[spoiler alert: full plot details of both film and comic versions are discussed]

Any film adaptation is automatically a mixed blessing: the chance to see some beloved story translated from a book/comic/radio show/TV show/videogame to the big screen, counterbalanced by the risk that it will get fundamentally ruined in the process. Of these, the trials of moving from books to movies are probably best established—massive plot compression, reduced complexity, characters that don’t “look right,” jettisoning of descriptive language—but comic adaptations are a much newer phenomenon with their own pitfalls. To begin, one might argue that Watchmen is only the second true conversion (what in videogame terms might be called a “total conversion” from mod culture), following Frank Miller’s Sin City, with most other superhero and even explicitly comic book movies often closer to “inspired by” or “featuring characters from” than outright transfers from actual comic runs or specific graphic novels[1]. Even previous efforts to adapt Alan Moore in League Of Extraordinary Gentleman, From Hell, and V for Vendetta, and Watchmen director Zach Snyder’s previous outing with Frank Miller’s 300, diverged quite widely from the source material. By contrast, Sin City was almost a shot-for-shot remake of the Dark Horse series. But even it suffered in the process of combining multiple short story arcs into an attempt to create a coherent longer film, and from the innate limitations of the flat-affect noir patois in which it was composed. Watchmen was conceived first as a 12-part comic run and then collected as a graphic novel, ostensibly providing a more linear narrative to put into a film script. Once the initial jitters that the material would be handled indelicately had passed (Snyder went out of the way to reassure fans), the more apropos question became: does Watchmen even work as a movie? With Snyder’s Watchmen, we have a vastly ambitious attempt to convert what has been called an “unfilmable” work into celluloid. How well viewers think the effort turned out is breaking down along traditional party lines, with mainstream critics bothered by its structure, pulp excesses, and even its slavish devotion to the text (cf. the first two Harry Potter films); and fans thrilled to see familiar scenes brought to life. At the risk of rehashing overchurned ground, I think the movie succeeds and fails precisely by those measures and your ultimate enjoyment will be determined how much you give credence to each. Let’s start with the structure.
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Albums added in February: 17,821

Featured Selections

Apoptygma Berzerk, You and Me Against the World (14)

Apoptygma’s Stephan Groth met stiff scene resistance in shifting from earlier, harsh attack EBM to the kind of epic synth rock exhibited here to great effect. Naturally, cries of ’sellout’ and fan rebellion were followed by the album achieving runaway success, particularly in Tokio Hotel-loving Germany. Anthemic, crashing chords tear the roof off with tracks like “In This Together” and the gripping “Cambodia.”

Asobi Seksu, Hush (12)

Asobi Seksu return with more immaculate, Lush-esque twee dreampop.

Autechre, Amber (11)
-, Incunabula (11)

Before they got self-consciously experimental to the point of becoming ‘difficult’ music, Autechre put out some wonderfully melodic IDM in Incunabula and Amber, which would be followed shortly after by Tri Repetae.

Scooter, Jumping All Over the World (24)

It’s Scooter. Jumping All Over the Place is pretty much self-descriptive.


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Craft has been said to be the art of doing more with less. Part of the appeal of famous adaptationalists like MacGyver and The Swiss Family Robinson is how they take everyday objects and minimal materials and create sophisticated solutions through inventiveness and a deep command of basic principles. So it should perhaps not be such a delightful surprise that the Black Cab Sessions reconnect with a primal experience of musical performance, stripped down as they are to musicians stuffed in the back of London’s famous cabs and making the most of a limited space. Yet within that basic premise – “One song, one take, one cab” – some truly wonderful, understated experiences develop.

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Although I confess to being strictly an enthusiastic non-user of the technical application Mathematica, dating from when I managed a college computer lab, I still enjoy seeing it evolve over time and take on new roles. For example, Wolfram (the company behind it) uses it in a “Math Behind Numb3rs” feature that lets you see demonstrations of the principles that the show’s Charlie Eppes spouts off, which helps to anchor plots to real applied mathematics. And of course, who can forget cofounder’s Theodore Gray’s masterful presentation at the 2002 Macworld Expo when he infused an infectious exuberance into an otherwise lackluster roundup of early Mac OS X developers?

And so I’m befuddled that Wolfram last week launched a Home Edition of its flagship product at the economically tonedeaf price of $259. Seriously? Compare to the varying student Editions, which start at $45 for a Semester Edition license and top out at $140 for a full Standard Edition student license. Of course it compares favorably to the Professional Edition which runs a steep $2,495, but then, how many of those are actually sold to individuals instead of institutions? In the same way that Adobe Photoshop Elements relates to the professional Photoshop and the Creative Suite packages, Wolfram is offering their core tools enhanced with some common-interest tutorials (Decorate Easter Eggs with the Riemann zeta function! Explore the parameterization of Valentine hearts!) And yet they effectively price the average household out of the market, even were we not facing a severe recession and hence curb on extravagant spending.

It might make some sense if this were intended to act as an introductory version of the product for prosumer applications, like Final Cut Express does with the full bundle of Final Cut Studio. But they go so far as to restrict the Home Edition for purely non-commercial home use, stating that it “is not licensed for commercial, nonprofit, academic, or government use.” So what kind of armchair data analyst are they really trying to reach with this expensive yet license-restricted package?

I won’t make any promises, but I am going to see if I can’t restore some life to this place. Be aware that I may end up posting in both directions, chronologically speaking, as I have a lot of material stored to write about that makes more sense to me when put in the correct calendar context.

Albums added in January: 14,007

eMusic Feature

Saddle Creek Essentials

Featured Selections

Andrew Bird, Noble Beast (12)

Andrew Bird continues to veer further away from his swing jazz roots with the Bowl of Fire while continuing to produce consistently pleasing pop/folk concoctions, with trademark violin, whistling, and lyrical flourishes to challenge The Decemberists’ Colin Meloy.

Client, Heartland (12)
-, Untitled Remix (12)
-, Xerox Machine (6)

Not as immediately infectious as preceding albums Client and City, Heartland takes a few listens to gell, but ultimately still delivers the retro synthpop with a bit more Gary Glitter stamp and stomp, particularly the Alice Cooper-esque “Lights Go Out” and their cover of Adam Ant’s “Xerox Machine.” The Untitled Remix includes primarily mixes from Heartland plus collaborations with Douglas McCarthy and fellow synthetes Replica.

Stoa, Silmand (13)

More silky-swoopy neoclassical darkwave from ex-Hyperium act Stoa.

Maria Taylor, Lynn Tweeter Flower (11)

Both Taylor and fellow Azure Ray bandmate Orenda Fink get several older solo releases added (below), while Lynn Tweeter Flower represents the latest output of AR’s more straightforward half.


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Albums added in December: 16,452

Major additions this month from the Metropolis Records back catalog, featuring Darkwave/EBM/Industrial acts like Clan of Xymox, Combichrist, Covenant, Haujobb, KMFDM, Suicide Commando, Velvet Acid Christ, VNV Nation, and Wumpscut.

Featured Selections

Cranes, Cranes (11)

Cranes choose their eighth album to go eponymous, four years after Particles and Waves. Alison Shaw’s child plaint remains a constant in their dream pop repertoire, backed with the familiar strumming of Jim Shaw, and accompanied by the bell-like tones from their more recent outings.

Gotan Project, Live (24)

As it says on the tin, live renditions of Gotan Project’s electronic-flecked nuevo tango add spice and uncertainty to their more battened-down studio versions. The album covers material from their tours supporting La Revancha del Tango and Lunático, plus two orchestral reworkings.

Sigur Rós, Med sud I eyrum vid spilum endalaust (11)

Translating as “With a Buzz in Our Ears We Play Endlessly,” the fifth release by Icelandic post-rockers Sigur Rós adds more upbeat whimsy than earlier Hopelandic laments and includes their first song in English, “All Alright.”

Hector Zazou, L’Absence (11)

A companion album to Strong Currents, featuring some of the same featured female vocalists (Nicola Hitchcock of Mandalay, Caroline Lavelle, Emma Stow) plus others including actress Asia Argento, and a rare male voice by the French singer Edo. Sadly, among the last of Zazou’s collaborative efforts before his untimely death late last year.

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[No album count this month; I didn't check in time.]

Featured Selections

Au Revoir Simone, Reverse Migration (13)

Remix collection of the entirety of 2007’s The Bird of Music, with “Sad Song” and “The Lucky One” both earning double dips. Some tracks are actually more stripped down rather than built up, such as the spare Slow Club mix of “The Lucky One” which concludes in a rousingly messy chorus round.

Lisa Hannigan, Sea Sew (10)

Longtime musical partner of Damien Rice, Irish sweetheart Hannigan was set free amid some untoward drama, but confidently breaks out on her own on Sea Sew. The album enjoyed early success with the leadoff single “Lille.”

Ladyhawke, Ladyhawke (12)

Kiwi Pip Brown plunders the dusty chest of 80s pop and pulls off the new-new wave secret soundtrack to a John Hughes film that never was.

Ulrich Schnauss, Goodbye (10)

Schnauss moves on from his homage to 70s space rock like Tangerine Dream to epic 90s shoegaze like Slowdive and SoulWhirlingSomewhere, right from the aching swell of opener “Never Be the Same” with its crashing synth waves under blissed out vocals. Music for dreams to ascend into.

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