sweet nothing

loss

2007-04-12T06:36:00.000-05:00

2007-03-27T11:28:00.000-05:00

book recommendation: 'hello i'm special' by hal niedzviecki. ever wondered why timewarner uses the slogan "the power of you" on their ads? i have, and it always bothered me. i mean what does that mean in terms of purchasing cable television? though not directly addressed in this book, i think i now have my answer. they're just doing what everybody else is doing, selling us the dream that we are somehow unique and special even while urging us to buy a mass produced and distributed product.

do you hate paolo cohelo's "the alchemist" as much as i do? i hope so. in any case remember how the universe conspires to help you as long as you want something bad enough? i do. i also remember that at the time i was reading this book (an international bestseller in case you're from mars) i saw a story on the news about people in the philippines that live in landfills. bad enough? no, one day the mountains of trash that were surrounding them collapsed and killed hundreds. their problem you see is that they just didn't want to live somewhere else bad enough. if they did, the universe would have helped them! what does this have to do with niedzviecki's book? well in my mind cohelo in his book was just articulating the same myth of uniqueness and easy success, albeit in a new age wrap, that hal attacks so eloquently in his book. in any case wherever you stand in terms of pop culture (and hey a lot of good things have come out of pop - however you want to define it) this is a must read as far as i'm concerned. i'm sure however that being intelligent readers as you are, the irony of addressing this issue on a blog read by an average of 3 people a day is not lost on you. and by the way i do think that the book's website is a bit lame in terms of even existing.

living legend

2007-03-25T10:07:00.000-05:00

back in ny for a week now and yesterday i caught the roy haynes quarter at the village vanguard. when mr. haynes said he was 82 i couldn't believe it. the guy has more energy on the drum set than most 30 year olds. a living legend indeed. http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:szp1z88ajyv3

2007-03-14T12:11:00.000-05:00

coming to you live from san francisco!!!! where to start...nowhere. i'm on a break suckers.

2007-02-28T19:18:00.000-05:00

if only life was more like...

new tape is here

2007-02-20T10:13:00.000-05:00

get the new mix tape here. not quite a black and bleak tape but not quite happy go lucky either. ie grey. throw it in your itunes or burn it. this time i kept the tracks separate. a couple of notes on the songs.

1. i looove (as geoff would say) al green. i especially like this song because it's always a thrill to discover a song that's been sampled by one of your favorites
2. from pet sounds - beach boys at their pick
3. a different take on the well known ivo from the cocteau twins' bbc sessions
4. i read about daniel johnston in mojo and then i watched "the devil and daniel johnston" a sad movie about a very troubled man. just got my first cd of his and i'm sharing it with you. i recommend the movie.
5. a -european?- classic
6. a song that doesn't mean much to me. galaxie 500 is kind of cool
7. nina simone. i rest my case.
8. a rarity for you by the velvet underground
9. if push comes to shove my favorite tom waits tune. play it over and over again and feel the goose pumps
10. from a very overlooked artist a haunting song. julee cruise as you know is david lynch's music muse and he wrote the lyrics for the lp where this song is from
11. the byrds with gram parsons from the classic "sweetheart of the rodeo"
12. the magnetic fields being sweet and geoff's favorite from 69 love songs
13. to take us back down there's no one better than nico
14. a rarity for you. from the 1969 sessions of dylan with johnny cash that produced 'girl from the north country' that appeared on nashville skyline. a special treat especially if you're familiar with the original
15. more poetry from the silver jews. one of the best first lines of any song any know
16. a nod to john. one of our college years favorites. thanks john
17. another rarity for you. the tiger lillies are out of their minds, their singer sounds like a castrato and they use accordeons. what more can you want. check them out
18. a leonard cohen fairwell live and sad sad sad. but hopeful.

he says hello from greece

2007-02-19T12:18:00.000-05:00

new tape on the works....soon to come

new york is cold cold cold. take that to mean what you will.

spector trial and where W can retire

2007-02-17T19:14:00.000-05:00

so the phil spector trial will be televised. apparently the judge in the case thought that it's time for courts to get over their fears after the o.j. simpson saga. i don't think this is good news for phil. this by the way is the judge

and this of course the defendant

i will make no jokes

there is still one place one earth where george w. bush could happily retire and enjoy the patriotism that he enjoys. as long as he can convince these people that he's been there before...

pixies

2007-02-14T10:12:00.000-05:00

so sometimes there are good shows on tv. about a month ago and completely by accident i came upon a documentary about the pixies on pbs. a number of high profile guests were being interviewed including david bowie and there was amazing footage from a pixies concert in 1988. i went on youtube and there it was (or at least just one song). hey enjoy!

2007-02-13T20:44:00.000-05:00

let's see if this works. this is james randi by the way, one of my heroes. this is a classic psychology experiment that he's showing here but i guess i just want to see if i can make this work.

2007-02-10T16:54:00.000-05:00

i don't care how cynical you are, this is the cutest thing on the planet

hmmm it looks like a....

2007-02-09T11:00:00.000-05:00

what the hell is it? is it the something out of Lost? is it the new club down the road? have the aliens finally come? all i can say is that it involves norway (gotta love them up there, seriously!) and seeds. click here for more...

2007-02-06T17:47:00.000-05:00

my latest music obsession (of the week). this is one of those times when allmusic gets it wrong. 3 star review? really? come on guy give it what it deserves...

2007-02-05T20:56:00.001-05:00

carnegie hall

2007-02-03T12:09:00.000-05:00

went to carnegie hall yesterday to see a combination of people presented by david byrne. this included Adem, Devendra Banhart, Vashti Bunyan, Vetiver and a couple of others. i was only aware of denendra and vashti but vetiver was a very pleasant surprise, sending nods to gram parsons and early byrds with his folky sound. i'll be sure to check out some of his records. vashti was angelic and more engaging than her records which for me can get a little repetitive and devendra was funny and electric for the most part, clearly the head of this gang in his ruby velvet suit. there was a lot of posing and 'hipper than hip' attitude that sort of made me think that a bunch of my brown classmates were playing carnegie hall but that is to be expected. the crowd, at least up where we were, was mostly young and 'hip' but from the balcony you could see all the balding men and their wives grooving out below. near us was also a guy with a red beard and hat that looked like he just arrived from grozny but he was feeling the music and grooving with the rest of us. all in all it was interesting and fun experience where weirdness meets the mainstream and discovers it's really part of the same big thing we call life...so poetic.

head of the pact?

she's cool

subway troubles

2007-02-02T12:06:00.000-05:00

the troubled man tunes his guitar on the subway on 53rd street. he starts a song. he stops. he is after all a troubled man. he bangs his hand on the wall. he looks like one of those ugly thin manly women you see sometimes in the shadows of new york city. he is a man though. his voice confirms it once he starts signing. it's a good song, one i've never heard before. i wonder if he wrote it. the train is approaching and the troubled man starts singing louder. louder. the train covers all sound with its scritching and wailing. the troubled man stops trying and i get on the train.

sad...

2007-01-31T23:18:00.000-05:00

the beautiful south break up. sad but then again they'll reunite probably around 2012.

almost 2007

2006-12-30T03:36:00.000-05:00

almost 2007 and here are the things running through my mind:

saddam is dead and though i oppose the death penalty on principle, i can't say i'm saddened exactly. freaking psychopathic murderer, good riddance.

do i have an obligation to answer individually all the emails i have received for best wishes as part of someone's list of friends? do i create my own list and send out massive emails as well? i replied individually this year but no so sure i'll be doing so next year. where is the savoir vivre for the web generation? how will my niece grow up without such rules?

just bought and listening to "the specials". great fun

greek drivers are dangerous. i called the cops on this one guy the other day. he almost destroyed 4 cars, including me, for no reason. hope the fucker broke a leg or something on xmas day.

you can't right click "save image location" on explorer. yet another reason why i use mozzila 99% of the time.

in terms of last year's decisions, i did manage to learn some poker, not sure that was a great idea and thanks to john's last visit some things about the guitar that seemed mythically complicated have become a lot simpler though i still need to work on more guitar playing. my goal for the first 2 months of 2007 to learn to play every song on this:

the annual litwack gift is here and it freaking rocks!!!! quality quality quality people, that's what the litwack way is all about...thanks geoff!

merry xmas and bye bye JB

2006-12-26T05:05:00.000-05:00

merry xmas everybody and happy anything else to the non believers that will roast in hell. we still love you though :-) back in freezing athens, yes it's freezing here, recovering from the food debauchery of the days past and looking fwd to more of the same in the days to come. still working on a final (for god's sake) for my motivation class, how ironic...

so the Man has died. what a shock and what a great exit monopolizing xmas. who's bigger than jesus now john lennon? nothing i can say that hasn't been said except that as most of you know he was in my top 5 favorite musicians of all time and it's as sad as losing johnny cash a little while back. so put on that vinyl, cd or mp3 and enjoy the groove, because the groove is forever...

rip

CNN the world news leader: you better believe it bitch

2006-12-19T11:24:00.000-05:00

30 minutes and counting is cnn's coverage of the fate of tara, ie miss usa, and her drinking and the donald trump's response. the cnn "journalist" just informed us before the break that "we got a lot more of this story coming". exactly how long can this go on for? what a sad state of "world's news leader". a small town girl that made mistakes and is now going to rehab. sob. maybe she can hang out with mel gibson. poor girl. you go donald, a second chance is what we all want. what a great xmas story.

update: the cnn journalist just told us "it may have been the mother of all press conferences". no comment.

eat your heart out

and

this is what dominates the news RIGHT NOW!

ahhhh, a much better story...

UPDATE: CNN is REPLAYING the press conference. we are at 45' and counting. no other news have been interjected even for a moment. excuse me while i vomit. and the pathetic attempts of the tools of cnn to actually downplay it even though they have elevated to the #1 news story of the day make me even sicker.

craigslist and money

2006-12-11T12:19:00.000-05:00

it must have been interesting to be there. here is a short article about craigslist meeting capitalism. i personally wasn't helped by the site when i was looking for a place in ny but i know a lot of people have. i also personally would be out to make a buck together with providing a service but still you gotta hand it to these guys. problem is, you look like a worse sell out when you do sell out. and chances are, you will. sell. out.

2006-12-03T20:26:00.000-05:00

it's been very busy here at the rotten apple and i haven't had many opportunities to update. however here are some things that have happened:

me and luis are writing a bunch of songs together. we have about one song already, albeit it's really two half songs

had a great walk / food day at the lower east side / east village today see pictures left and below

i baked an apple pie awhile ago and here is the evidence

i bought an external hard drive and saved all my ipod music as well as a shit load of files from my pc. it's exciting!

bought some wine glasses, cups and bowls today from c&b.

other than that all is well...

2006-11-20T14:16:00.000-05:00

so ok, this site has some of the coolest shit i have ever seen in relation to rock 'n' roll. not only that but our old friend J.M. (who is probably cool with being identified by name but you never know) is the new art director there and responsible for this kick-ass website, among other things.

check out wolfgang's vault NOW!!!

2006-11-13T15:46:00.000-05:00

time is precious and updates are few, i know. faithful reader these are hard times of rejection and soul searching but i guess that's the whole point of this stupid adventure we call life. so let's cheer up and listen to some good music. this post's recommendation for your pleasure:

Bat for Lashes - fur and gold

US based readers may find this hard to find through traditional means but please give it a shot. lo-fi , folky, dark and haunted this is a great record.

bat for lashes brains and feathers:

NEW TAPE

2006-10-30T14:00:00.000-05:00

on a rare 3 hour break from my life me and luis made this tape for all of you. Just click here to get it and look at the bottom of the page. Enjoy and tell your friends. The tape is saved as one long song, perfect for ipods and all mixed. Track list included in the rar file.

hope you like it.

2006-10-27T11:14:00.000-05:00

so guess what? Dish responded!! Wait don't get so excited:

Dear Sir or Madam,

Thank you for your email. We have updated your account to have your information removed from our predictive caller list. Please understand that independent retailers are making telemarketing calls as well. If you receive further calls, you will need to notify the telemarketer that you wish to be removed from the retailers individual call list. All independent retailers of DISH Network are separate business entities and are not under our direct control.

Your business is greatly appreciated and we thank you for allowing us to be of assistance to you. If you have any further questions or concerns, please refer to www.dishnetwork.com or reply to this email.

Sincerely,
Dish Network e-care

mmmm what a warm fuzzy feeling i'm getting. did you notice there was no apology? so let me get this straight...someone else called me - a middleman - which sells their products so of course this takes away all their responsibility, ok ok that makes sense. so all i have to do is get a list of all their providers and locate the responsible one. so if someone calls you and tells you he's calling from X company, let's say dishnetwork your first thought should be that they're really from somewhere else. yeah that makes so much sense. I DON'T GIVE A FUCK. if you're letting these independent businesses use your name you have a responsibility towards their (your) customers. and of course the best part is that though they didn't call (possibly, not that anyone cares to look into it) somehow my number is removed from their database. how interesting. and then companies are wondering what the hell is wrong with revenues. what a spineless, gutless response. not that i expected better and neither should you.

2006-10-23T19:16:00.000-05:00

yes, this is what i do in my spare time and believe it's limited these days. just sent this.

Dear Dish Network,

1. I'm on the no call list so your reps calling me alone is illegal.

2. If you think that training your reps to hang up on prospective clients is the right strategy to get them to switch to your service, then good luck. I was very polite to your rep who called me twice and as soon as I politely said "thank you sir I am not interested" he hang up on me. Nice.

3. If this is the profile your company is building you probably don't even care but fyi I will never, after this, get your product and I will do my best to spread this story and dissuade others from buying your product as well.

4. If you care one bit, an apology would be nice, but please do it via email and don't be mad that I don't give out my number (which you're using illegaly anyway).

Regards,

George

rude company

career change

2006-10-21T09:11:00.000-05:00

i've always been fascinated by people who change careers, especially those who leave highly 'succesful' and profitable careers in order to raise horses or become those guys in orange that fish (?) oysters. why and how come? here is an example of a man that was a drummer and became a chiropractor. a failed drummer you're thinking? not quite. terry chimes was the clash's first drummer. i blame it on the yoga. read all about it.

this is the 6th picture that comes up when you googleimage (a new verb) 'the clash'. shape up google

2006-10-18T15:26:00.000-05:00

so much has been happening but it feels like so little as time passes and passes...

i found this while looking for a new desktop image. hr giger ipod skins...Cooool

sick and music

2006-10-04T08:11:00.000-05:00

i'm sick mother fuckers and that means staying home and being first hot and then cold. i am 1 cd away from importing all my us-based music into my new 80gb ipod which i love. now to be honest, this being my first ipod, i have to say that there are a lot of obvious improvements that it could use. a way to delete files without having to connect to the computer is the first one that comes to mind. in any case though this is really the future in a lot of ways even for a cd-vinyl junkie. to my surprise though getting the ipod has actually strengthened my resolve to keep buying at least some of my music, especially what i consider essential.

saw the mountain goats live the other day, a week after catching the lips. what a contrast! the goats are basically 1 guy, john darnielle, with 1 understated but good bassist that at times plays the base like a guitar and a guy on keys. some lights changed but there was no confettin or santa clauses or aliens but it was still great. john is a very likeable tormented soul with a lot of dry humour and very engaging. not being a huge fan and having discovered them only a few months ago - from the weeds series soundtrack - i enjoyed discovering some of the songs i didn't know. a canadian singer called christing fellows opened and she was good enough for me to buy her cd on the way out.

discover them, they're great

Oh my gawd…that was fucking great!!!

2006-09-25T08:56:00.000-05:00

So I’ve been toying with the idea of abandoning this blog completely, I’m too bus these days and so are all of you. A lot has happened since the last post, I know work two part time jobs and study and still try to have a good time here. In this spirit there have been a lot of concerts lately. We say Jose Gonzales with Zero 7 last week and it was really good. Gonzales’ best songs were covers – heartbeats (the Knife), love will tear us apart and teardrop (Massive), but that may be because as humans we tend to like familiarity. At any rate he played a great set and though we got the tickets for him initially, Zero 7 didn’t disappoint at all. A mix between Air and Stereolab they were bouncing and dancing and fun and I recommend the experience.

The day after that we say Tortoise (the notekillers opened and ‘killed it’ though there is some controversy as to what that mean see luis’ blog). Tortoise was good but too loud and fast at times and somehow the show wasn’t entirely satisfying. Both me and luis silently agreed to leave at the end but before the encore.

And now we come the inspiration of today’s post, last night’s Flaming Lips concert at Hammerstein Ballroom. Now for a little bit of history, I had come close to seeing the Flaming Lips live before, in Boston ca 2000 and then we got there too late for some reason and walked in as they were playing their last song to find Wayne covered in fake blood and a general pandemonium and it was crushing to have missed it, wasn’t it John? Now the Lips are much bigger and well known and everyone has seen footage of their concerts, I even caught them on Letterman the other day, so the initial element of surprise was, I thought, lost.

How wrong can one man be? Very wrong. Following a very good set be Deerhoof the Lips came on with Wayne in a giant bubble that went on top of the audience and we carried him on our hands and then sent him back on stage.

Before the concert Flash Gordon gave everybody a laser pointer to be used later in the show. It was! We used it to point at a mirror that Wayne has holding and he reflected the beams back to us with all the light off and it was magical.

There were unscripted moments too. Part of the opening involved about 100 balloons to be thrown on the audience and then a few songs later we were asked to pop them all.. One suvived and when Wayne noticed that everybody was pointing the lasers on it he stopped talking and asked for all lights to be turned off and we all sat there watching a giant glowing ballon as it jumped around and it was truly beautiful.

There were 2 encores and 2 people that fainted and there was dancing and lights and sooo much confetti and it was fucking ridiculous. Yes, I will say it. It was the best concert of my life.

pictures not from yesterday but it was just like this only unspeakably better

pandora's box

2006-09-05T10:50:00.000-05:00

i was introduced recently by a crazy scientist to the site called Pandora. it's basically a piece of software that creates playlists "radio stations" for its users based on bands and / or songs they identify as favorites. you can have more than one of these so you can have like me an 80s station and a folk station etc. this is a good idea especially for people who either don't know much about music and want to learn or for those who know a lot and want to know more or for those who don't have a lot of music or for those times when changing the music is annoying. in any case, check it out. it's worth it. while you're at it learn more about this:

2006-09-01T05:01:00.000-05:00

this warrants a post since there is no way i'll be able to sleep. it's 5:50 am, i woke up at 3:20 to watch the US - Greece semi final for the world championship and though we started trailing 12 points we turned it around and won in the end 101-95. god this sounds so tame, i'm so amped right now, i've been screaming and kicking with the tv and the greek radio over the internet on, if i don't get kicked out of my building i'll be lucky. sportfm.gr keeps playing the last 10'' with alphaville's "big in japan" playing in the background (in case you live on mars the championship is taking place in japan). so now what does one do after talking on the phone with family and friends, does one go to astoria? no, one sits down and writes a ranting post in order to burn some of this adrenaline. WRGGJEGERGJKEG GOGERGJETJEGK EG EGJEG :GEGEGJEG EGJE ER:F G EKEGKLLLLLLL .

better.

from espn coverage:
"The U.S. seemed in control after Joe Johnson's 3-pointer gave the Americans a 33-21 lead with about 61/2 minutes left in the second quarter. It was around then that James told his teammates on the bench': 'They don't know what to do.'

Well, they figured it out in a hurry."

better luck next time

back?

2006-08-31T07:04:00.000-05:00

is it time to come back on this blog? is there a point? hmmm...for now i think i have to just go do the dishes. this is were i've mostly been all this time.

it's here!

2006-08-03T08:43:00.000-05:00

ok loyal readers here it is: my first mix tape to be offered online to YOU. 45' of jamaican music mixed for your pleasure. it's in mp3 for all you ipod people out there and it's also one long track because as geoff says one should keep it old school. it's also one track so there are no gaps between the songs for ipod people and also as chuck klosterman says old mix tapes forced people to listen to the whole thing and that's what i want you to do. there is a track list and for more info on some of these artists go to my reggae post somewhere in the archives.

get DJAthan Jamaican music 1 for your summer pleasure this link will work for seven days, tell your friends.

sit back and enjoy...

ps. i'm leaving for home today so updates may be sporadic.

2006-08-01T08:24:00.000-05:00

reggae or more accurately jamaican music tape coming very soon on this very page...definitely by the end of the week and if not, well then it's going to have be september.

subway singer

2006-07-31T10:43:00.000-05:00

A short round white man was singing in the subway car this morning. He didn’t do it for money, at least he never seemed to ask for any and he wasn’t a great singer either. He sang “This land is my land” and the US national anthem among others. He did all this with a mild to strong “Spanish” accent. I was semi forced to abandon my music, stopping my cd player from spinning my cd but I kept the earphones on, to insulate me from the pressure of giving him money if he asked for it. By the time I was ready to get off I was ready to go up to him and volunteer money. I didn’t. As far as I know he sang himself to his stop, deep in Brooklyn. As I was getting off the Asian woman sitting directly across from him gave me a desperate look. I didn’t reciprocate the despair even though I empathized. I guess the worst part was that it was sad and enjoyable at the same time to hear this man sing. I walked away confused and I remain just that.

PS. After finishing writing this, it came to my attention that for better or most likely for worse, this is my 100th post. Whatever that means.

2006-07-28T08:26:00.000-05:00

news that is worthwhile:

harry potter is an animal lover. really. disturbing.

so glad to see the leader of the free world work so hard for television. he understands what matters. good job sir!

why am i not including anything about the middle east? well, i did say "news" right?

2006-07-27T12:46:00.000-05:00

finally mystery solved. it was about getting some. who would have thought.

2006-07-26T08:30:00.000-05:00

so you want to know about a couple of records you might not have heard of? no? well you will anyway. we are starting a new section here at sweet nothing that will run with predictable irregularity every 3rd week on a Monday (today will be the exception) unless that week i'm having a particularly lousy week in which case it will run every 4.5 weeks on a Thursday unless I'm too depressed in which case it may never run again, so stay tuned! we will call this section: "records to impress your friends with if they are the sort that cares and if you are the sort that cares".
these feature presentations will not necessarily be of hard to find or know records but it will veer towards the slightly unusual in a non-hipster kind of way. (expect phil collins all you belle & sebastianites). for full reviews with which you may or may not agree go to your local allmusic.com

our first feature record of the day is:

a folk mini-piece with a backing choir that works like a charm. think silver jews meets the supremes and then forget about that and go out and buy it. i was actually introduced to howie gelb through this:

a much more solitary affair and also worth getting.

our second album is this:

an apparent classic from 1973 (i wasn't aware of it till recently but maybe you are). in any case, it's british folk meets some weird noises that could have come from 1998 and i highly recommended it.

enjoy your loneliness.

news (not mine)

2006-07-25T10:22:00.000-05:00

not sure how i feel about this. sounds like some trashy shit. michael bolton?!? then again poor smokey...if you people bought more records they wouldn't have to do this. who am i kidding, i guess it's ok. (resigned sigh)

you know this is good but it's hardly a revolution. i mean they'll be giving out prizes for common sense soon and you know what? they really should. lately i'm getting a little fed up with (american) hypocricy. there's poker being shown every night on tv, with millions of dollars of advertising asscociated with it for online poker sites and yet these sites operate in a legal haze and people are getting arrested and fired as a result. in the meantime espn etc are making millions and so are advertisers. sorry i just feel so angry at all this stupidity.

holy shit my womanhood exposed. cut to beer commercial.

flush on the river

2006-07-23T10:33:00.000-05:00

so summers in new york are apparently humid, dark and rainy and everyone's pissed off. i bought a record yesterday on vinyl that i already own on cd and though i have been known to do this on purpose on at least 2 occasions (al green gets next to you and blondie's parallel lines) this time it was an accident. it was such a good hole to fill that i couldn't resist. kraftewerk's radioactivity bridges the gap between the ethereal materpiece that is autobahn and the albums that would define electropop and an entire decade, namely man machine. i've been playing around with my mixer and expect a slice of electronic goodness coming sometime soon.

espn classic is showing poker all weekend long and it's so hard to look away even though i should be working, i'm walking around in ridiculous boxer shorts watching the 2005 main event of the world series of poker even though i know what's going to happen. i guess it's something like karate kid, i mean can YOU resist it?

gotta love it

glamness

2006-07-21T08:42:00.000-05:00

as i wait here for the flaming lips tickets to go on sale in 21 min. i thought i'd let you know about glam rock. hell, why don't you all read about it here.

2006-07-20T14:47:00.000-05:00

so i'm upset about two unrelated things or so i think and then i suddenly realise they are related.
1. the 0 rating of pitchfork on this:

because the guy who wrote it doesn't have friends and can't find 3 more stereos to listen to the whole thing. this set provided a lot of people i know with so much fun awhile ago.

2. the ridiculousness of living in a city where all these people come to play only to realise that their concerts sell out within 45 seconds unless you are lucky enough to pay the ridiculous almost $10 a piece charges of ticketmaster. (this in relation to the upcoming flaming lips concert in september ergo the connection).

love making octopi

2006-07-14T09:03:00.000-05:00

so pretty much around the same time as a young british astronaut was dropping a spatula in space, me and luis -my permanent concert date- went to see yo la tengo perform a live soundtrack over the underwater films of Jean Painleve, one of the pioneers of underwater film-making (nice review here). of course anything related to scuba these days is bound to depress me and yo la tengo are not known for their upbeatness so after about 1 beer me and luis were almost reduced to tears. we enjoyed such classics as the lovemaking of the octopus and the seahorse giving birth and it was lovely and it was sad. the music was really a beautiful and erratic at times sonic landscape over which the creatures of the sea and the peculiar subtitles of the films floated. i recommend the experience if it comes to a park near you.

the most troubled male in the world

love knows no tentacles

troubled trobadoure gone...

2006-07-11T09:43:00.000-05:00

syd barrett has died. i don't mean to glorify and blow it out of proportion but it's so sad. maybe he finally found the peace he needed.

belle and sebastian etc

2006-07-07T10:42:00.000-05:00

so there have been private sad developments in my life that i'm dealing with and won't talk about but here is something from last week and prior to the aforementioned private sad developments.

me and luis went to see b&s in battery park and they were great. i'd seen them before in greece but this time was even better. i mean luis was there :-)
the set was a mix of the old -i fought in a war, if you're feeling sinister etc- and the new -from the life pursuit album which is very good by the way. i think the main take away was that they really are a fun bunch of people, especially what's his name the main guy -look him up, i'm too lazy. some girl was invited to sing though she messed it up and another one was invited to dance on stage and it was shall we say jolly good fun. the crowd was what i like to refer to as hipsters with a slight derogatory grin.

i took out my camera and realised that i had no batteries but i managed to steal these from other blogs, thank you unknown contributors. i asked a girl behind me if i could borrow her batteries and she said they were the only ones she had. then she offered to send me her pictures if i gave her my email, i said yes without thinking and thankfully dissapeared promptly after the concert was over. she was probably just stupid, not realising i could borrow the batteries, take a couple of pictures and give the batteries back. oh well.
by the way geoff, when you search google images for b&s battery park, 4th of july etc you get nothing. food for thought and a reminder that google is not all powerful which i know you know.

2006-06-28T12:44:00.000-05:00

what a week it's been!!! a four horsemen reunion after 5 years, living with john again albeit for a tiny bit, luis moving for good to nyc, the fucking ocean playing 2 great shows in ny, running around, falling down, poker, geoff's birthday, uses and abuses and early morning world cup games. currently at work with red eyes that burn, reminiscent of the army a little bit and trying to stay up after consuming this great proscuitto and peppers swandwich i got from the local italian buthcher shop. some pictures for your viewing pleasure though 80% of my readership is actually in these pictures. oh well, i always strive for quality not quantity.

five years in the making this picture

2/3s of the fucking ocean in brooklyn

music and concerts

2006-06-17T08:39:00.000-05:00

so this week i started making up for lost time concert wise in ny. i also started this 9-5 internship which so far i have to say has energised me for some reason. anyway, on wednesday i went to a cocnert by club d'elf, john medeski latest group. the line up included a violinist, a dj, bass, organ of course, drums and an oud player which gave the whole thing an eastern folksy feeling that was great. the music ranged from freejazzy type stuff to more traditional songs with an eastern flavor and all together it was really good. they'll be coming out with their first studio album soon so look out for it ,it'll be worth.

on wednesday maceo parker the soul of the jbs was playing in brooklyn and i couldn't miss it. let me tell you, these old timers can really play loud and long. towards the end i saw people rushing the stage and just when i thought that someone lame like blink 182 would show up, a white clad prince shows up and people went nuts. anyway he was great, he played the last song from 3121 which has a great groove to it.

erik's in town!! we went to another concert yesterday in central park, very chill, mainly so called nu-jazz stuff, all thirsty ear artists. it's promising a music filled next month or so...hopefully.

get back

2006-06-12T19:20:00.000-05:00

with the fear of becoming a morbid blog let us salute another great musician who died a few days ago. i speak of course of billy preston one of my favourite organists of all time and not only because of his association with the beatles, rolling stones etc. a soul-funk hero who left us so young and if i may be so selfish another great musician i will never get to see perform...

rip

so back in the states and i was off to atlanta for an experimental economics conference. the city is mediocre and coca cola world sucks. the cnn center tour is ok. the people in the conference were brillian albeit in an academic way most of the time. definetely made me feel dumb but kind of proud to share their world for a few days. interestingly the guy (other than my co-author) with whom i got to hand out the most was a non-academic brazilian that game me the thumb (sic) up every time he saw me for the first few times anyway.

i have been thinking of a little fiction experiment lately but more on that later...

atlanta in all its glory

overdue from my country house and slightly HDR messed with (see post on litwack.org)

update of sorts

2006-05-28T08:22:00.000-05:00

so it's been awhile.

to be honest, what prompted me back is another death of a great musician, this time king of ska desmond dekker. you can read about it here and here if you haven't already but i just want to note that a few years ago i was listening to a mixtape that erik (with a k) made me and was completely stuck on this one song, rude boy train. it was so catchy and fresh and everything music should be and all in 3 minutes. that was my introduction to this great musician and the rest is history.

a lot of visit are being planned, john finally though you better staying with me, i never heard back, geoff maybe, erik and luis is finally moving soon! there were times in the army that all of these guys were distant dreams and now they're all visiting, funny how life blah blah blah.

oh yeah the update. i'm in greece coming back soon.

ps there were going to be pictures but greece=dial up=4 failed attempts=a post with no pictures.

2006-04-28T12:46:00.000-05:00

the tree outside my window is beginning to bloom. the only hopeful thing this week.

on a rare break last week i went with some friends on a walking tour of lower east side offered by timothy speeds levitch, who has appeared on a number of things including the waking life - remember rabbit? - and a film called the cruise that should be coming in the mail today. it's a little difficult to relay this experience. Speeds is an interesting cat with unusual things to say and you come out thinking of massaging the city's epidermis - the asphalt - and the horrid conditions of immigrants first arriving in the city. he knows stories and facts and probably makes some stuff up along the way but the whole experience is a historical roller coaster that you don't want to leave. some of his gravest philosophical statements and parallels between torn down synagogues and life were followed by his unique nasal laughter, almost self-deprecating, which made the experience for me, all the more valuable. i'm not one for too much seriousness these days. here are some pictures from that walk

memories and naps

2006-04-18T14:26:00.000-05:00

As I was taking a nap, one of those strange afternoon naps more like a little dream journey, I heard voices of children playing and laughing. Maybe it was random neurotransmitters firing, I have never heard children anywhere near this building, but I imagined I was back at my countryhouse as a child taking one of my afternoon naps. Though the house I was a few minutes from the sea it was high up on an incline and from my room you could always hear the people down at the shore playing and laughing. I closed my eyes and tried to be transfered there in my sleep and for a minute there I think I did. All of a sudden it was over. There are so many memories that we have that are accessible but so rarely do we take the time or find the means to reach them. I don't know what did it for me today and even though I feel really really sad now, I'm grateful for that recovered bit of my life.

where the children played

despair

2006-04-17T15:40:00.000-05:00

Thank you all for participating in my previous post and helping us solve the riddle! Now listen up. I am holding hostages a number of pigeons and squirels that I have been collecting from central park. I will execute one for every day that goes by without someone leaving a comment on this blog. Spam comments don't count.

such a tease

2006-04-09T18:30:00.000-05:00

Help me and luis complete this, it's so addictive:

Here's what we have (album names ommited cause I'm lazy). Don't read further if you want to do it by yourself:
1.?
2. Kate Bush
3.?
4.?
5. Pavement
6. Norah Jones
7. Flaming Lips
8. ?
9. Dylan
10. Bjork
11. Arcade Fire
12. Blur
13.?
14. Madonna
15. ?
16. It's not James
17. Wu
18. B & S
19. L. Hill
20. ????????
21. ? So close but what?
22. Radiohead
23. White Stripes
24. Outkast
25. Somehow I think John will know this one. It reminds me of something but what?

Greek Parade

2006-04-06T09:34:00.000-05:00

Last Sunday was the Greek independence day parade on 5th avenue. It was a beautiful sun drenched day and the national spirit was riding high taking us back to the ancients lands of our ancestors who brought most of you western decadents the light of civilization. Here are some selective pictures with minor comments...

The children, the children, always at the forefront...the future!

Horses on 5th avenue in a majestic display of our Greekness.

They look so real!

Behold the Spartan-Trooper straight from the intergalactic battles of Sparta!

Filled with pride the common folk enjoy the display of their heritage.

No comment.

The hand of God.

Greek and American values, a perfect match in one of the last floats of the parade. It was hard to contain our nationalist tears with this one

journey to the stars

2006-03-28T09:39:00.000-05:00

Stanislav Lem has died. It's a sad day for science fiction. May I also recommend "the star diaries" to those only familiar with Solaris. It's worth it. That's all.

too much

2006-03-21T11:05:00.000-05:00

dear reader, there has just been too much happening. i came back friday from my trip to paris-london and i have decided in the interests of your interest to confine myself to pictures and brief comments. needless to say paris was beautiful and the food excellent, london kind of grew on me more this time and we -me and artemis- had a wonderful time. music was purchased mostly filling the gaps with the occasional discovery (see below). enjoy the show:

the family in ...well it's quite obvious.

self explanatory!

Dr. Lonnie Smith and Lou Donaldson live at the jazz cafe. GREAT! (Artemis' discovery)

London from the london eye, you know the big wheel thing

Manga exhibition in London, these are great for desktops i took a ton:

so i walk into intoxica the famed record store in portobello and after 5 min. this crazy funk comes on. it turns out to be this pretty obscure record of carl "sherlock" holmes which i immediately snatch. great!

vinyl

2006-03-05T10:50:00.000-05:00

yesterday's vinyl purchases from a really good place downtown at st.marks.

beaten up

2006-03-04T12:19:00.000-05:00

and so it had come to this. after months of psychological and other violence he was lying face down with a few broken teeth and a badly bruised superego. he had tried and failed but at least he had failed. rollo may would have been proud. headlong into ontological anxiety, charging like a madman against forces greater than him and it had finally come to this.

"Let's dance in style, lets dance for a while Heaven can wait we're only watching the skies Hoping for the best but expecting the worst
Are you going to drop the bomb or not?"

the lyrics of the song kept turning in his head. are you going to drop the bomb or not? well are you? he spit some blood on the ground and got up. he felt good. after all tomorrow was the same fucking day. isn't that what they say?

waking up

2006-03-03T18:59:00.000-05:00

He woke up feeling alert but confused. Lately sleep had been one dream after another, one more real than the other. The other day he saw an entire hand of poker being played in his sleep. He had pocket 10s and won it easily when a third 10 appeared on the flop. He longed for the days of dreamless sleep. He knew that one always dreams no matter what but there was a period in his life when he couldn't remember a single thing upon walking up. He remembered those days fondly. In the best of cases he would dream of dolphins, in the worst haunted images of people in his past would keep him up. He didn't need this added layer of stress. Blending in with everybody, everyday, keeping up appearances was challenging enough. The house was a mess and he set about cleaning it, washing the dishes and washing away guilt for being alive when so many other had died. Guilt for having a home when so many others lived on the cold streets of the city. His morning cleaning ritual always calmed him down. He put a record on the turntable, the flock of seaguals eponymous debut. New wave ear candy someone had said. How right they were.

bits and pieces

2006-02-22T15:01:00.000-05:00

wathcing the public access channel the other day i came across what calls a group calling itself ditty bops. sure enough i thought one of the two girls was pretty and playing weird guitars and mandolins etc but the music wasn't bad either and it kind of fits with my old-timer, folk- blues personal revival that i'm going through. anyway for those interested click here.
. The site looks sufficiently fucked up to deserve your time. for those readers of luis' blog this is the great find he refered to and yes it was all mine.

in accordance with the aforementioned revival i've been watching scorcese's blues tribute and just got son house, father of the delta blues. by the way i have never seen anyone play guitar like those delta folks. hand goes full circle and smashes on the damn thing, really interesting.

a big wednesday afternoon "screw you" to the entire field of humanistic and existential psychology that though remains my favorite, i hold responsible for most of my problems about authenticity and choice. in the question between freedom and happiness, i'll vote happiness today.

god damn it rollo may, why?

and finally to lighten the mood. they found this and much more, i wish i was there

on blindness

2006-02-17T11:46:00.000-05:00

As I was standing at the corner of 2nd avenue and 13th street, passing the time, my eye fell first on the blind man's walking stick at the opposite corner, then on the blind man and finally on the woman next to him. She was standing beside him and behind him and he was practicing making well defined arcs with his cane while standing. She seemed to be talking to him and he would nod uncertainly. He then started walking very carefully, the woman on his side, the stick defining arcs on the pavement, the passer bys avoiding them and looking down and me on the other side, just looking. They kept going up and down the street for about 20 minutes or so, trying new things like getting off the pavement and avoiding trash cans and it looked hard and frustrating. Automatically when I see a blind person on the street I usually assume they've always been that way, born into darkness and used to it. Maybe unconsciously I recall the story of the man who was born blind and found his sight in his forties only to realise that he couldn't function as a seeing person and missed the comfort of his darkness. I think they made a movie with Val Kilmer about that. I rarely sit and think of the people like you and me who suddenly lose their sight and how they must train and try in order to start living again. I was walking around a lot that morning lost in my own problems and never did I think that to just be able to walk and see where I'm going is reason enough to feel happy. Of course it isn't and as soon as the blind man and his teacher left the scene I forgot all about them.

snow in new york

2006-02-12T22:38:00.000-05:00

it's been coming down people and it's great so far. tomorrow it turns into mud and it's gonna suck.

news

2006-02-09T14:11:00.000-05:00

here are some news

1. senators mess with wikipedia. i think the worst part of this is the senator that changed the part that said he was a liberal in college to being an "activist". only in this country and greece is the word liberal a dirty one.

2. if you've been hearing a lot about the mohammed cartoons but can't find them check out the economist. (subscription may be required, check out the end of this page for a sample) the only site at least of the big ones (bbc, cnn etc) that had the guts to publish them. try finding them on google images and you get nothing. now why would you want to see them? well if people are getting killed over them don't we have a right to know why? and by the way enough with the cartoon row. it's as stupid as trying to put this guy in jail in greece. he was cleared eventually. however i have a nagging suspicion that the people that recognise this absurdity will also mutter things about respect when it comes to the muslim row. you have to be consistent people. oh check out this on the subject too. this is the woman that worked with van gogh. (the director obviously)

3. i cleaned my house today.

old man

2006-02-08T16:37:00.000-05:00

i've been toying lately with the idea of closing this blog or just letting it be with no updates. i guess i'm not writing that much and i also don't really understand what it's about anymore. maybe i did before or maybe i didn't care but now it makes little sesne to me. anyway i'll give it a couple more shots before i kill it.
today i want to write about an encounter i had yesterday in the library. a very old man, an archetype of anyone's grandfather or older father for that matter sat next to me. i was sitting on one of those long couches. i had my laptop on my lap doing some excel bullshit and he peered over my shoulder asking me if i mind. i didn't and i told him. i engaged him in conversation because i felt he needed it and in a way i did too. he was retired he said, had worked for bayer all his life, did i know bayer he asked, yes i do i replied and he cautioned me that they don't only make drugs. he worked in the pigment department making colour. he was a chemist. he is a chemist i guess. great company he said, he's from la and what's your association with nyu i asked. he said they had given him some sort of library pass because he used to do a lot of research at the library for his job and since he lives in the area he spent his time in the library reading. he asked about computers and the internet and if i like it and how google makes money. i explained as best as i could. he then said it was nice to meet me and he left. a bittersweet exchange leaving me unsure of how to feel. sad or happy, envious or afraid of the future. later that night i was leaving class and i saw him walking in front of me very slowly and with his cane. i considered saying hello but it was dark and i thought i better not. i passed him by.

read with this

gambling kills

2006-01-31T14:24:00.000-05:00

so yeah i was at atlantic city over the weekend and let me tell you i gotta stay away from casinos. you know those people that don't get, don't see the appeal and are bored when people play cards? well, that's not me. i lost my couple of hundred, pretty conservative believe me, felt the adrenaline and had a great time but the moral of the story is stay away if you're like me. on other news life proceeds one day at a time, no music news worth writing about and no other real news either. just a boring mother fucker i guess. oh i played squash with george and we were both dead within 10 minutes. got to get in shape, it's ashame...

stay away

soul men

2006-01-20T08:42:00.000-05:00

back in new york for a few days now and things are similar and different. i don't do new year's resolutions but i do try and have resolutions and then change them and forget about them but for now i'm managing to eat better by cooking more and more varied meals, exercise -to be honest we just went for squash yesterday but it was a pretty big step, god i'm in so much pain, swimming will also happen once a week. i don't if it's a sort of post jet lag but i am waking up around 7:30 each morning and i like it. i also got two important subscriptions one to the new yorker for the train rides and the other to netflix for the lonely nights. hey that almost rhymes. here is a picture from my countryhouse taken two weeks ago

let's dedicate it to the memory wilson pickett who died yesterday. low rawls died a couple of weeks ago and isaac hayes is in the hospital. what's going to happen to us when all these people are gone?

rip

2005-12-31T09:11:00.000-05:00

just in case i have any readers not already turned on to geoffrey litwack, do yourselves and download his annual with an introduction by luis ripoll colombian extraordinaire. the "not aphorisms" section rocks.
in other news i guess this is the time of year for contemplation and resolutions and such. seeing that i engage in such mind fucking contemplation most of the time, i'll spare you and me further embarassment.
i listened to "clap your hands say yeah" two times yesterday while driving, it was the perfect lenght from kifisia to glyfada and it really grew on me. i understand the guy's voice may be annoying but it's really part of the package. shame to mojo for not including it in their 50 best of 2005 while including -you know how i know you're gay- coldplay and oasis of course. it's been a lot of fun listening to all my vinyl back here and i wish there was a way i could transport it back to ny with me. on the other hand there's much music most albums i own don't even get one listen per year, though a few are indeed in heavy rotation.
what else what else i guess that's it for 2005. i started the year in london then amsterdam back to greece, new york and now greece again albeit until it's back to ny. i start to sound like a fucking high class prostitute. and let that be the closing note.

i made it back

2005-12-26T14:11:00.000-05:00

so merry christmas everyone even though it's a little late and i mean that wish in the generic sense. i made it back to greece to be greeted by my wonderful parents and brother. so far i've been given a nice collection of cds and a snazy (i have no idea how to spell that) pair of gloves and i've been eating non stop, lamb and smoked salmon and the turkey of course with greek style stuffing. i also came back to a bunch of back issues of mojo and "jazz & tzaz" and their great cds. first couple of nights were a bit strange but i feel at home again now. had a great night last night with the old greek gang together again for the first time since last summer and tonight is quite so far. not much else to report except it's pretty cold here, kind of bummed about that. anyway merry everything everybody:

i take it personally

2005-12-21T09:54:00.000-05:00

once again i get ready to depart and i leave ny in a state of chaos with this stupid mta strike. i mean these people have been denounced by their own parent organisation, not to mention the courts which of course someone like a greek communist would argue are part of the ruling class anyway, but what about the parent organisation? anyway, once every 25 years and it happens to me and yes i do take it personally and yes the world revolves around me. new york was so insane last night, traffic and people fighting it out on the streets. and cold. very very cold. fuck this, on to warmer climates. provided i get to the airport on time.

free association

2005-12-19T15:56:00.001-05:00

it's been a strange day, finishing up a take home and a so called mini paper and getting ready to go to class and then rufus' comedy show with some laundry and bloomingdales' thrown in. a lot of new -for me at least- music and most of it pretty aggressive but i don't feel aggressive. i cleaned the top of my fridge, i recommend it. it's like union square, you never know what you're going to find there.

so yesterday i was having this conversation about ace ventura, the only movie i ever walked out on, and someone said for them that was edward scisorhands which blew me away and which lead to a discussion about johnny depp which finally led to vanessa paradis. now i don't know if this was only big in europe (luis had no idea what i was talking about and i rely on him for music trivia) but then i couldn't remember the fucking song, you know the one with baby baby in it. big help, i know. anyway i got home and looked it up and it's be my baby and it's the one that says "all i'm asking you for, when i walk out the door is to be my baby (baby)". anyway that whole album was produced and written by lenny cravitz and according to allmusic it flopped comercially but it was an artistic success!!! it may be true and anyway she covers "waiting for my man" by vu in a very sexy cover which is what prompted me to write about this, see vu reference in last sentence of last paragraph. pheww.

ok, i'm leaving for greece on wednesday so happy journey to me, let's all pray the subway strike doesn't happen cause then i'm fucked.

from this

to this? ($3 at amazon. art comes cheap sometimes, but i would pay $1 for a vinyl version of this if someone is selling.)

2005-12-15T11:44:00.000-05:00

not much to report faithful readers. it's freezing here and i've been quasi busy with finals. currently listening to prince 1999. i picked out this double vinyl on a very cool record store in soho where i also picked up a double vinyl for some other lunatic. today i have to go to a seminar where they tell me to be careful or the us government is going to kick me out and then i promise to be good and then they sign my papers so i'm all legal when i get back into the country. hoora. (wow there's a lot of screaming on this album, side 3 in particular, pretty insane).

by the way, i listened to that podcast by ricky gervais i told you about and i wasn't that impressed. they had one of the guys make some ridiculous claims about evolution and monkeys and magic and gervais and merchant would pound on him but the whole thing just wasn't very believable. i'll download the second one and if that blows too...well that's that for me.

iraqis are voting. no matter what your stance on the apeman running the us may be this is a good thing. it may not have come about in a great way but it's a good thing and yes i disagreed with the war in the first place. however, listening to michael moore compare the us with a 2 year old infant that you wouldn't hold responsible if it spilt the milk and so the us should just say sorry and leave...well that's a feeble argument to say the least. anyway didn't mean to get political here so go buy /steal/ download this:

2005-12-08T16:02:00.000-05:00

lui lui

2005-12-06T09:39:00.000-05:00

luis came last week as faithful readers of both blogs will know by now. his interview went well and i think he had fun. a lot of music was exchanged, mostly 80s or 80s inspired, ghosts of dead teenagers were resurected. the belligerent exchange in the subway deserves a story of its own, suffice to say that there was a lot of shouting and cursing from one guy to this woman and it lasted for 5 stops, until she got off. what we've been debating is why she didn't get off earlier. i think that once you sit through one stop you would probably stick it out but luis is looking for conspiracies. other than that we met a patz. (i have no idea how to spell that).

he wants to be a psychoanalyst after all

one of my patented pictures

it snowed in ny, lower east side pic

2005-11-29T15:17:00.000-05:00

hmmm could be interesting. gervais on the radio. can't wait to hear it.

motherfuckas

sunday morning...

2005-11-27T11:26:00.000-05:00

i thought i might post some pictures from elias' visit and maybe talk about nothing for a couple of lines. i'm not a big fan of old movies, can't really get into them, i guess i'm a product of my times when it comes to film. i can recognise the artistic value etc perhaps but it doesn't work with me like old music does. i don't usually see the timelesness. of course there are notable exceptions to this such as casablanca and citizen cane etc, but bare with me, i'm trying to make a general point here. that being said however i was semi forced to watch the 1936(!) movie "my man godfrey" the other day and i was floored. the humour worked, the characters were well developed albeit a bit caricaturistic (?) but it was still very funny and enjoyable. and to think that everyone involved in that film is probably turning to worm food as we speak. kind of creepy... oh and there were some beautiful women in the thirties too...

veni vidi vici

2005-11-21T11:00:00.000-05:00

before, the quiet life

10 days, several hundred $$$$ and a lot of walking later

elias came, saw and ... well you get the point

running like madmen

2005-11-18T11:05:00.000-05:00

ok so i lied, i haven't posted in a while. elias is here and i had this huge exam yesterday and all these things are happening and studying and museums and statistics and roy ayers live and bauhaus concert and more studying and luis just turned 17 again and you get the picture.

get the picture

you dummies

2005-11-05T11:41:00.000-05:00

all right so you guys don't like the science stuff. fine. here is something you might appreciate then. Straight from the AP

"SAN RAFAEL, Calif. - Say what you want about police officers, but they are no dummies. The California Highway Patrol gave Kevin Morgan, 28, of Petaluma, a $351 citation for driving in a high occupancy vehicle or "HOV" lane with a kickboxing dummy propped in the passenger seat.

The dummy was wearing a Miami Dolphins windbreaker and a baseball cap, but Officer Will Thompson noticed that the "passenger" had no legs.

"When I looked inside his window, I thought, 'Oh, that's cute,'" Thompson said. "I didn't even ask him where he got it. I think he was pretty embarrassed because all the people driving by were laughing." Thompson often parks next to a car pool lane and stands on his car door rail to look down into passing vehicles.

His point of view allowed him to see the legless dummy.

"I think about the only thing he said was, 'Well, that didn't help me very much today, did it?'" Thompson said. "I said, 'No, it didn't.'

Thompson then placed the dummy on a freeway shoulder to deter other commuters from similar schemes. "

No comment on the last line by the way. See i don't even make you go to the news site, i'm that nice.

"I swear officer it was all his idea"

neuro...what?

2005-11-04T10:40:00.000-05:00

i went and heard a talk yesterday by colin camerer an economist at caltech about the emerging field of neuroeconomics. yes, you heard right. this guy not only belongs to that class of economists that attacks the classical model of rationality via behavioral studies that pretty much show how removed we usually are in our behaviour from the predictions of the nash equilibrium (not always but enough) he has set for himself the task of showing what happens in the brain during decision making processes. people in fmris are asked to play ultimatum and other games and .... well you can see the results a little below. he was also a very engaging speaker and pretty much concluded his speech by saying that "science progresses funeral by funeral" a quote that he didn't attribute to Max Planck but anyway we forgive him for that cause it got good laughs. he also said that in a recent conference he made some comment about nash without knowing that he was there but nash didn't disagree. he was asleep.

this is your brain on unfairness

"...boredom advertised as poetry..."

2005-11-01T17:41:00.000-05:00

to the bag men and women roaming the streets, to the man out of the shadows asking for a cigarette, to the procession of masked new yorkers up 6th avenue, to the people taking care of my trash, the failed actors working at mcdonalds, scott the librarian with his abundance of knowledge some useful some not, to the people with the dead end jobs and the nagging wives and unresponsive husbands, to my super whose knees hurt like a bitch, to the authors that nobody ever reads and the poets that never made it, to the homeless who are starting to get cold, to the doormen and the taxi drivers and the bored security guards, to the asshole that pushed me in the subway today, to those consumed by their beauty and intelligence and to those unable to appreciate anything, to those seeking meaning and finding it in television, to my friends and to my non existent enemies, to acquantainces that re appear and dissapear just as quietly, to the kids from summer camp some of whom are probably dead by now statistically and to those from the army that i will never see again, to the hundreds pairs of hands typing away as i look on from above, to all those and many more,

good luck, really good luck.

the day's ost provided by:

happy halloween

2005-10-30T12:22:00.000-05:00

member of kraftwerk on his way to a halloween party

walking around

2005-10-27T10:46:00.000-05:00

so i had 2-3 hours to spare yesterday, is that a dirty word in our day?, so i decided to start walking around downtown, doing the touristy thing without the map. i really haven't done that a lot since i moved here cause things moved to fast you know with the housing panic and then classes started... anyway, i had two goals yesterday, to find a record store, always a great goal in an unknown city, and to find a quiet cafe to just sit and read. it was cold but not cold enough to walk around for a while. the streets were mostly quiet downtown, a few tourists here and there, my ear caught some french at some point, the usual food vendors and asian laundry places advertising "new management, we love customer" with a big heart in the place of love on an electronic marquee. i walked and walked and was getting hungry when i spotted a "vinyl only, no cds or tapes" store and i walked in. the familiar smell of old records engulfed me and i felt closer to home. the owner wasn't there and when he came in he asked us (me and another guy) if we were looking for something specific. i replied no and the other guy asked for something that i didn't recognise and therefore can't recall and the owner left through the front door to go to his basement next door where apparently a lot of good stuff is hidden. the rows of records at knee level had "no touching" signs on them and i obliged. the place was extremely expensive, cheaper lp i saw was $10 but i imagine the mean to be around $25 or so. i left and finally found a quiet cafe with only two other people in it. walked in and ordered a quiche and a lemonade and then changed the lemonade to a capuccino. the ladies next to me were having a really sad conversation the one woman's mother and her mental breakdown. i stayed for about an hour reading and then wandered back, up mercer and made a stop at a record store i've been in twice before. this time however i went downstairs to the vinyl section where they really have an excellent and affordable collection. most lps were around $11-13, new. their reggae stuff was almost impressive. however, until now amsterdam remains the king of dirt cheap vinyl and lots of it. i left, without buying anything but knowing now that i need to buy a turntable, and then i wandered back and went to class. by the end of the walk i was listening to tom waits, nighthawks at the diner, and i challenge any man or woman to listen to this record while walking around and not laugh aloud at the stories, especially the one where he takes advantage of himself, "i'm not weird about it or anything, i don't tie myself up first"

amazon

2005-10-21T09:03:00.000-05:00

i told you i'd write more even if it's random shit. so i'm doing my morning routine of websites and i'm on bbc and i see on the side bar there "Amazon logged 'by stealth". Now it's still early, for a student anyway, and I'm not quite awake so my first thought as I click on the news item is "something terrible has happened to Amazon". I just felt like sharing that. I think it's amazing, great, despicable, inspirational that the amazon people have highjacked the river to such a degree. Granted more awake people didn't think of the site as opposed to the river as soon as they saw that but i'm sure others did as well. Give us something to aspire to, I think. Just kidding. Not really.

what is this world coming to?

pithecanthropus erectus

2005-10-20T10:10:00.000-05:00

i guess at some point this shit won't be cute anymore but right now i have to walk around in sweat pants and a sweater not shaven for almost a week and slippers, too annoyed to call the super again after he failed to show up on monday to fix this and that, after i woke him up (!) at 10:20 am. i guess it's one of those days again when the chronic dysthymia is all powerful and the world could just go off and fuck itself. and what a sorry world this can be at times. did anybody see saddam creaming that poor judge? i guess you don't get to be a mass murdering maniac if you can't verbally put down a judge.
i want to scream a fuck you to that russian girl that's in two of my classes and can't stop smiling. i've seen her outside class too and she walks around smiling. what's there to smile about, all the time? fuck you unknown girl.
god i wish i could say i feel so much better now. my plan for the day to read that one statistics chapter on 1 way anova and then watch some larry david. i think he fits perfectly with the mood. my pledge to my readers, a new post every other day even if it's just a rant like this. tomorrow, a note on consciousness.

rain

2005-10-13T10:48:00.000-05:00

i like to embarrass people with my sadness and add to the general glominess of the city sometimes. new york is one of the gloomier cities i've ever lived in or visited despite all the grandeur and "new york" this and that and its unique character and it being the new rome and all of that. don't get me wrong all of that is certainly true but at the end of the day, the people in the subway and the bus stops and the ones hanging around on the street, not to mention the ones sleeping at the steps of the churches make the city sad. amsterdam is the happiest city i've ever lived in and i'm not talking about the happy tourists that are tripping but the people in the tram and on their way to work and in the shops. somehow it rubs off on you.
new york on the other hand shares this with athens, a certain melancholy in the eyes of most people, even the ones with the suits and all the money. of course what it doesn't share with athens is the sense of potential and creativity that runs through it. because despite all the above it has a way of making you feel as if you're the one that built all the great immense buildings, as if you settled here at the beginning of time and are somehow part of this modern marvel, even though you've never lifted a finger to built anything, certainly not in new york.
i really should be studying right about now but the rain is just too intense. the wind is too intense and emotions and thoughts too. i feel like rain is about to burst out of my chest and flood my tiny apartment but nothing happens. somehow i ended up on blogger.

and now for something... well you know

2005-10-09T08:25:00.000-05:00

that's right, completely different. i found this site around the time i was quitting my job and spent a considerable amount of time there. boreme, has a lot of stupid shit but some of the stuff it has it kind of cool. one of my favorites is this little video. now i may be out of the artsy fartsy loop but i'd never seen anything like this before and i guess the main question that i have is how does one realise he may be the world's greatest sand artist and how does he decide to dedicate his life to it? gutsy stuff... anyway, please enjoy, this is my little break from reality for you.

geoff's here!!

2005-10-03T21:29:00.000-05:00

geoff's been here since friday and here is a short update:

we've met with his brother and lovely family, went to see "the history of violence" which was good but it needs a different ending, went to a bunch of soho stores that geoff wanted to check out, visited ground zero which was of course depressing and intense and generally it's been jam packed. geoff also met george and they hit it off right away. quote of the day "this bohemian stuff just isn't cute anymore"

kris and friends

2005-10-02T19:17:00.000-05:00

we are actually in the middle of geoff's visit but i wanted to post this on kris' visit last week. kris came for a top secret vacation last week with his two cool japanese friends and we met up twice. once for dinner downtown and once for dinner uptown, we got the city covered. it was lovely to see kris again after more than 5 years and i hope you get back here soon kris.

Ishibashi, George, Kouketsu, Kris and assorted trash on the upper west side

no comment

2005-09-27T13:09:00.000-05:00

Dear George, In revising your proposal for "Root Down: Simply Funk" in future semesters, it would be helpful to include an expanded list of record labels to give us a better idea of what would distinguish your show from other proposals. In
addition, most of the artists listed (Ike & Tina, The Ohio Players, War, George
Clinton, etc.) have gotten quite a bit of mainstream media exposure, which
effectively disqualifies them from play on WNYU. Good luck, and we hope to hear
from you in the future. If you have any further questions, feel free to e-mail
me at ....."

Eat This

holy shit!

2005-09-25T18:49:00.000-05:00

ok, even the worst cynic (see me) has to admit there's some great things happening here. Greece is now both the european champion in football (soccer for the americans) and basketball. Today was an easy win and the american commentators predicting an easy german victory swallowed their tongues. I saw the game over at a friend's house in columbia. I'm sure his neighbours really appreciated 15 greeks clapping and cheering from the first second. it was great and of course europe's final countdown was played in the end! Read your history...

by the way what is up with the bbc website and their complete lack of coverage? see for yourselves

blog

2005-09-23T10:55:00.000-05:00

so let's make this into a real b-log. this is my house at day 4.

funk

2005-09-21T15:09:00.000-05:00

This is the proposal i put forth to wnyu for a 2-hr weekly show. Comments welcome.

Root Down: Simply Funk

Though Funk music is often used and misused as part of so called “Dance Music” and is also often rightly cited for its influence on hip-hop and rap, most of the time it remains on the sidelines and is not always appreciated for its complexity not to mention its powers to elevate the human spirit. Moreover, one of the sources and origins of Funk what has come to be known as Soul-Jazz is usually shunned upon by Jazz purists and lacking some of the more obvious intensity of Funk, it’s also shunned by the aforementioned Dance scene. That is a shame because artists that helped define it were instrumental in the “creation” of Funk down the road and could also play a mean set. Through Root Down, I aim to explore Soul-Jazz as it developed from the early 60s onwards with artists such Jimmy Smith, Lou Donaldson, Jimmy McGriff, Brother Jack McDuff all the way to its evolution into Funk, best represented by heavyweights such as James Brown (it doesn’t have to be “sex machine”), the JBs, Tower of Power, the Ohio Players etc and also bands such as Cymande, representing different influences from Africa and the Caribbean, all the way to the concept-psychedelic funk of the somewhat obscure Jimmy Castor Bunch. Of course, the show will also deal with the many 70s soundtracks based on the so called blacksploitation genre of film making. The show will stop before we hit the disco scene, not for lack of good music but for the sake of the show’s cohesion.
I believe it’s time for all these brilliant artists to come back into the foreground not only for their musical talents but also for their authenticity as artists and human beings.
Representative Artists

Roy Ayers
Slave
Jimmy Castor Bunch
Bar-Kays
Sir Joe Quarterman and Free Soul
Brothers Johnson
Donald Byrd
Lou Donaldson
“Brother” Jack McDuff
Jimmy McGriff
Commodores
Cymande
The Funk Brothers
Herbie Hancock
Isaac Hayes
Headhunters
Willie Henderson
Ike & Tina
Isley Brothers
Curtis Mayfield
Mandrill
The Meters
The Ohio Players
Maceo Parker
Rufus
Sly and the Family Stone
War
Tower of Power
Dr. Lonnie Smith
Lonnie Liston Smith
Jimmy Smith
Fred Wesley and the Horny Horns
George Clinton
George Benson
Green Grant
Johnny Hammond
Richard “Groove” Holmes
Herbie Mann
Bill Jenings
Wes Montgomery
Big John Patton
Billy Preston
The Spinners
Bobby Bird
Booker T and the MGs
Ripple
James Brown
Brick
Fatback Band
Cameo

Representative Labels

Stax
Motown
Blue Note
King Records
Atlantic
Columbia
Verve
Rhino
Hi Records
CTI
Pacific Jazz
Epic

google earth

2005-09-19T15:21:00.000-05:00

i am addicted. please download this. this is where my new place is

new york

2005-09-18T15:03:00.000-05:00

i guess i haven't written anything in almost a month but all of you know what's been going on so it's not really a big deal. new york hasn't been good too me yet though i'm looking at the future with optimism. after almost a month of being here and having been sheltered in both brooklyn and the bronx (mainly) by wonderful people, i finally have an apartment i can call my own. a lot of the stuff i moved in today and the rest i'll be getting throughout the next weeks. now i can change the settings of this blog and write new york as my location. now i can actually write an entry. classes have meanwhile started and it's time to concentrate on those rather than learning the ins and outs of the real estate market in new york. by the way, come to me for advice if you're contemplating a move here. anyway all's well that ends well.

ps. i got two white hairs on the right side. i blame it all on the aforementioned real estate market.

my turn

2005-08-25T22:38:00.000-05:00

in greek time is has already happened so happy birthday extremely stressed and neurotic me! as you probably know i am currently in new york frantically searching for a house and i'm sick of it. this blog will still report in greek time and display athens as its base until i have found my home.

leaving on a jet plane

2005-08-20T06:07:00.000-05:00

what's there to write about. too much and just not enough. for the time being i'm leaving on a jet plane.

back on track (sort of)

2005-08-17T09:18:00.000-05:00

ok, so now that the weak ones have been weeded out and only the true hardcore followers of this pathetic excuse for a blog remain, it's time for both of you to know what's up. Well, things shut down in greece over the summer and true to form, that's what happened to this blog. The past month that also marked my Artemis' visit to Greece and vacation to Myconos and Ikaria (both islands) and chilled out, ate, slept, scuba dived, swam and generally had an amazing time. We also celebrated Artemis' b-day, Happy B-day Rabbit! Artemis left for London yesterday and crushed I carry on...sigh.

so I'm getting ready for ny (that's on Sunday) and I'm getting an ulcer because of lack of housing, university and other bureaucracy and ...well... moving across the known world. I'm also excited of course, but right now the stress is severe. That's it for now, enjoy some pictures if anybody is out there...............

Ikaria

View from church on tiny castle ruins really high up in the mountains of Ikaria

Sooo good together (Ikaria mountains, lake behind us)

Another beach at Ikaria

There's always a cat involved (Credit Artemis with this picture)

Self-portrait in Myconos

Hey, that's not me next to baby!

Wreck at 25m (around 75ft I suppose)

out for the summer

2005-08-05T12:18:00.000-05:00

still closed for the summer. more soon...