drat fink

high flyers

""Futurists say that if anything's going to happen in the way of leaps in technology, it'll be in the field of medicine," says retired Rear Adm. Stephen Baker, the Navy's former chief of operational testing and evaluation, who is now at the Center for Defense Information in Washington. "This 'better warrior through chemistry' field is being looked at very closely," says Admiral Baker, whose career includes more than 1,000 aircraft-carrier landings as a naval aviator. "It's part of the research going on that is very aggressive and wide open."

credit check

"Instead of sending cash, coins and cheques up to the altar on a collection plate, parishioners can use special envelopes to charge monthly donations to their credit cards, or they can add their offerings and gifts to God to monthly bills paid online or through automatic bank account transfers."

chipping away

"The Los Angeles Police Department is seeking to censor films and television shows by threatening to sue any company that uses its name, badges or logos without getting approval for the script first."

"The city attorney's office said it would take legal action to protect its "intellectual property rights" as it expects to be "treated just like Starbucks and Coca-Cola"."

croc me up

theres got to be an easier way to go.

tarmac daddies

"Pavement - archived and committed to video as rumoured elsewhere (well, fuck, here actually), we'll be reissuing Pavement's groundbreaking 'Slanted & Enchanted' album on October 22, completely remastered with scads of extra tracks (at least 3 outtakes, the "Summer Babe" b-sides, b-sides from the "Trigger Cut" single, the entire "Watery, Domestic" EP, plus more), liner notes from SM, Spiral, Chris Lombardi, Dan Koretzky, Gerard Cosloy, Boche Billions and other hangers-on.

On the same day, we'll also be releasing the long-awaited Pavement 2-DVD collection, 'Slow Century'. Compiling all of Pavement's videos, two live gigs with multiple camera angles, plus a 90 minute documentary by director Lance Bangs. And no exhaustive DVD set would be complete without self-serving commentary from the musicians and video directors. If only we could've hired Elvis Mitchell to lob the softball questions up there the way he did on that "Memento" DVD....well, that would've taken us another year to get together, so be thankful we didn't bother."

saturday in the dark

blew some cash this afternoon on discs, although it could have been alot worse. bought nina nastasia's The Blackened Air in anticipation of not seeing the show. also picked up francoiz breut's Vignt a Trente Mille Jours. the darla records samplers are always "a treat" for $6 (the middle listing at the bottom). for my oldies buzz i picked up fairport convention's Heyday: BBC Sessions 1968-1969. and finally despite my waning enthusiasm, i couldnt help but grab the sleater-kinney pre-release promo for One Beat. and i also couldnt pass up a $10 North by Northwest dvd.

among the many other items consider but passed over were:

1) Bright Eyes -- Lifted, or The Story is in the Soil... (clip)

2) Gram Parsons -- Live 1973

3) Les Sans Culottes -- The Ennui and the Ecstasy

4) Interpol -- Turn On The Bright Lights

5) Lee Hazelwood Tribute Album -- Total Lee

6) T-Rex -- Dandy in the Underworld

7) Carter Family -- Clinch Mountain Treasures

8) The Fall -- The A Sides

all sewn up

might check out this nina nastasia show at the knitting factory tonight if i can motivate myself. any interest?

also, both of these monday shows at the knitting factory are appealing -- erase errata/ex models/kimya dawson or the later show -- The Soundtrack of Our Lives.

it think not

"For this is not about conspiracy but about coincidence -- unexpected connections that are both riveting and rattling. Much religious faith is based on the idea that almost nothing is coincidence; science is an exercise in eliminating the taint of coincidence; police work is often a feint and parry between those trying to prove coincidence and those trying to prove complicity. Without coincidence, there would be few movies worth watching (''Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine''), and literary plots would come grinding to a disappointing halt. (What if Oedipus had not happened to marry his mother? If Javert had not happened to arrive in the town where Valjean was mayor?)"

swing shift

"The pedal steel guitar is not an instrument you would immediately associate with electronic music, but, BJ Cole is no ordinary pedal steel guitar player. Cole came to fame in the early '70s with his group Cochise, and he went on to collaborate with the likes of Mark Bolan, Scott Walker, and John Cale. More recently he has worked with Bjork, The Verve, Spiritualized, and Beck."

this is our youth

feeling my usual pangs of regret today over lost time. news of brownies closing has intensified that. where does the time go? (clips)