Top 6 The Only Movies I saw in 2007

Which roughly translates to movies playing at the Parkway/Cerrito theatres during Baby Brigade night.

• Pan's Labyrinth
• Knocked Up
• Death at a Funeral
• The Darjeeling Limited
• Dan in Real Life
• Beowulf

Top10RecordsNotActuallyReleasedThisYear

Much of the music I ended up really digging this year wasn't actually put out in 2007. In fact, my 2007 list seems a bit underwhelming in terms of my relative enjoyment of the music. So this is really the list closest to my heart ...

10. Darc Mind - Symptomatic of a Greater Ill [Anticon] (1997/2006)
The lost hiphop album from 1997, this record finally saw the light of day in late 2006, thanks to the kind folks at Anticon. Dense and brooding, rich and intelligent in that mid 90s NYC kinda way. This is everything that I miss about hiphop.

9. Prince Rakeem - Ooh, I Love You Rakeem [12" Single - Tommy Boy] (1991)
Pre Wu-Tang era RZA kicking it, back in the halcyon days of hiphop. An insanely catchy riff (that sounds scarily like "Summer Nights" from Grease) with charming lines like "I've got too many ladies \ I just gotta learn to say no" - yes indeed - we love you Rakeem.

8. The Left Banke - I've Got Something On My Mind [12" Single - World United Studios] (1967)
I ran into this song via a sample in Jens Lekman's "Black Cab". One way to discover great music is to shamelessly track everything Jens Lekman has ever sampled. The man's taste is impeccable. This is a forgotten British invasion band (probably because they were actually from New York), doing a lesser known single (they are best known for "Walk Away Renee") - glorious pop in all its baroque sixties flavor.

7. Dirty On Purpose - Hallelujah Sirens [North Street] (2006)
Beautiful droney shoegazer indie-rock. I will always remember this record (and specifically the song "Your Summer Dress") as the soundtrack to the day Satya was born. It provided me with hope and confidence and meaning for everything that was to come.

6. Various Artists - Colours Are Brighter [Rough Trade] (2006)
This is what you get when indie musicians start breeding. Rough Trade released this compilation CD of kid's music featuring the likes of Belle and Sebastian, Fourtet and The Flaming Lips. This was designed specifically with a certain brand of hipster parent in mind - the kind that is trying to maintain their last remaining shred of indie cred, now that the days of drunken punk shows and 3am techno and dirty toilet sex are a distant memory. Or for people who never actually experienced any of those things, and used music as a substitute for their lack of a sex life. ANYWAY - this comp is good, clean fun with plenty of weird and a very strong cast of musicians. Also, your kid can now claim that the first record they ever listened to was something on Rough Trade.

5. Huun Huur Tu - The Orphans Lament [Shanachie] (1994)
Tuvan throat singing is fucking genius. And these guys are the best in the biz. We used this record and the low baritones of the kargyraa to soothe Satya in the early days. She still seems to have a special affection for deep rumbling noises. I'm so proud!

4. Mathematicians - Level Two [S/R] (2006)
This album is crazy and all over the place. The only coherent theme between the songs is math. Songs range from angular post-punk to synthy rap to soulful R&B. And yet every single song is good. And super dorky. "We'll be just fine \ when the number is prime" - Hell Yeah!

3. The Mountain Goats - Tallahassee [4AD] (2002)
John Darnielle gives up his low-fi DIY ethos for a more full blown studio sound in this concept album. While some may argue that his newer work borders on saccharine and over-produced, this, right here, is perfection. Just enough production to really bring out the music, but still raw and earnest in keeping with his earlier stuff.

2. Jose Gonzalez - Veneer [Hidden Agenda] (2005)
We keep rocking gently on this list, thanks to Swedish boy#2. Lovely syncopated guitars, an angsty yet soothing voice, and a fantastic cover of "Heartbeats" (originally done by fellow Swedes, the Knife). Funny thing is JG seems to be at his best when he does acoustic covers of electronic music - maybe he should do an entire album devoted to this genre.

1. Jens Lekman - Oh You're So Silent Jens [Secretly Canadian] (2005)
We have a Swedish meatball sandwich here at the top of the list. Ok - more like a Swedish veggie-meatball sandwich. Anyway - we played this album over and over and over again all year long. And then we played it some more. And yet, it never got old. Jens Lekman also has fantastic taste, and liberally samples the music he loves. You can definitely hear him channeling the Magnetic Fields throughout the album, but he also has plenty of other, more obscure influences (See #8). This is the kind of album you play while falling in love. And since this year has been all about falling in love with our little tinyness, this pretty much had to be the album of the year.

listmania

Instead of simple list format, I will actually include a mini-commentary for my end of the year lists this time around.

Here we go ...

17 months

Why do so many parents insist on giving out their children's ages in months? It always creates this dissonant pause in my head, while I quickly try to extract a remainder from the ensuing mental long division (in base 12 no less). See - it took you a while just to parse that sentence! That is what "Oh - she'll be 17 months in 2 weeks" does to me. They have units for a reason, people. Seriously, what is so hard about saying 1 year and 5 months? Gads ...

it's no rushmore, but ...

the darjeeling limited is still an entertaining movie. a little disjointed, and a little euro-centric in its depiction of india, perhaps, but still worth a dekho as they say in the desh.

i was a little confused by the signature track (where do you go to my lovely - peter sarstedt), but i just discovered that mr. sarstedt was born in india, as were his two brothers, and suddenly it makes perfect sense.

in the mail

my new toy

WTF?

Umm - why have I had the pantsless leprechaun story headlining my blog for so long?

In other news, I'm back from Chile.

Leprechaun Opens Car Door for Pantsless Man

On BoingBoing:

Posted by David Pescovitz, October 17, 2007 4:01 PM | permalink

This gentleman, Kim Leblanc, was arrested in Cincinnati, Ohio on Tuesday morning sitting in someone else's car and not wearing any pants. According to an article on WLWT.com, Leblanc told police that "he had done drugs and believed that a leprechaun had let him into the car." [Link]




... and some featured comments ...
Comment #4
All right, sir. A leprechaun led you here."
"Yes, officer. That's correct. A leprechaun!"
"Okay, sir, now what about the pants?"
"The pants?"
"You're not wearing any pants."
"CURSE YOU MAGICAL IRISH BASTARD!!!"

Comment #12
I appreciate the guy's honesty. "Listen, officer. I was tripping balls and this leprechaun told me to drop trou and get in the car. What the hell was I supposed to do? Say NO!??"

configure; make

i've been hearting technology lately.

i just discovered google's street level 3d view. holy crap - it is pretty fantastic. some scary ramifications w.r.t. the whole surveillance society thing, but it makes for a pretty nice navigation tool.

yay for subversion!

trying to scrobble my xmms playlists to last.fm has been a pain in the ass. and building the regular last.fm player has been an adventure in dependency hell. i think i finally have something working though. oh - wait no ... i hate linux. wait - i didn't mean that. linux is awesome. linux is like sliced bread. like butter. like butter on sliced bread. like ... forget it.

the real issue is that my playlists seem to get pushed out, but then end up somewhere in the void. the idea of the internet void is an interesting one - a place where forgotten bits end up. packets without a recipient. the informational equivalent of the dryer sock fairy. or entropy. hmm - should explore that idea sometime.

new radiohead - drm free, sliding scale and completely downloadable. this is the future. it is really special that the biggest band in the world is offering up a great big fuck you to the riaa. nice.

update:
i almost missed the nextbus (hurrr for the pun). yes - this is truly the way to ride. now i know exactly when to time my mad sprint for the bus stop to minimize rain soakage. what's YOUR bus?

Less Than Zero

I must have gotten on a list somewhere, because I've now been part of two telephonic polls in the span of a week. The first one was survey on radio listening habits. The other one was a political survey of some sort, possibly related to MoveOn. In both polls I got to hand out zeroes - a zero for a certain new-country selection that made me want to rip my ears out, and a zero for one Mr. Bush that makes me want to rip out every other part of my body.

Speaking of opinion polls. It seems that these have effectively replaced the actual electoral process when big decisions get made by big people in between elections i.e. the other 363 days of the year. This makes its one's duty to take as many surveys and opinion polls as possible, since opinion polls seem to carry just as much weight as actual elections these days. Gotta represent!

got_it

must. eat. camera.
Originally uploaded by shreddd

Kiddoes are unpredictable. One week it seems like they just fit into everything that you want to do ... you're eating out, seeing the occasional show, going to parties, yadda yadda yadda (My first yadda yadda yadda in writing btw). And then suddenly they are fussy and needy and catch colds, and even watching an hour of TV becomes impossible (or something you have to break down into 10 minute increments). Such is the life. She is pretty damn cute though.

twittering

I am playing with Twitter in an attempt to completely sell out to the Web 2.0 revolution. You can now follow my every single mundane micro moment (now conveniently located right *here*) as I twitter my way towards post-humanism. Once the web becomes sentient, my persona will exist into eternity. Whoa!

ugh

yesterday was a really crap morning. we were already spooked about having to take the babezorz in for a kidney test and didn't sleep much the previous night. then, on our way out the door to the hospital, i tripped over the stairs - HARD. as in badly twisted my ankle, rolled over twice and bumped my head hard. as in, passed out in pain while trying to get back in the house (and bumping my head again) hard.

which meant that poor e had to take the baby in by herself for the test. which meant that she had to try and console a 5 month old as they poked at her with an iv for half an hour. watching a strapped down, screaming infant will pretty much break your heart. e - i am so incredibly sorry that you had to go through that, and that i wasn't able to make it.

and now we have to deal with the very real possibility of surgery in the coming months. like i said - not a good morning.

os x-pert

so i'm getting a little better at moving around and manipulating things on the new macbook. adding a three button mouse was a life saver - i can right click again!

seriously though - i'm still looking for tips to create a more zen like state of flow in my computering. any specific tools / applications / hints are very welcome ...

nostalgia

I'm writing this from my brand new MacBook Pro. It is very very sexy. Everything seems prettier on a Mac. Things just work. Magic seems to happen every time I push a button. Ah - the allure of design ...

And yet - I know, this will sound absurd but - I miss Linux.

As nice as the new BSD based Apples are, something feels a little odd and klunky when you try to operate from the command line. Aqua is totally awesome, but it was never meant to (with good reason) interface with the shell. I guess Linux makes me feel more godlike, while the Apple makes me feel more like a spectator. Still enjoying though ...

jens + left banke

jens lekman does this great song called "black cab", where he samples the left banke's "i've got something on my mind" - also a brilliant number. both artistes are definitely worth checking out. the left banke is probably one of the most underrated bands from the 60s, and jens lekman is basically e's new swedish husband, in a manner of speaking. i had to share.

daydream nation

wow - somehow, surreptitiously, mysteriously my social life has crept up on me. as in, i suddenly have one. in the course of the past 10 days, we've ended up going to a movie, hanging out and drinking with peeps in cafe/bar like situations (twice), doing trivia night and finally going to a sonic youth show.

s.y. show was our first non-baby social experience ever, which was both terrifying and liberating.

speaking of trivia - did you realize that hyphy doesn't have any of the standard vowels (a-e-i-o-u)? weird!

diesel sweeties vs. the riaa

we were so hype. or was it fly??!!!

• slightly askance trucker hat - check
  
• fanny pack - check
  
• wispy stache - check
• moppy hair - check
  
• disaffected stare - check

not sure if this was five years behind the times, or fifteen years ahead.
if only i hadn't tucked that shirt in ...

yes - that is indeed me!
"back in the days when i was a teenager /
before i had status and before i had a pager"

Trying Not to Sweat the Details

Since when did I become such a pedant? Why, not so long ago, I was talking about wanting to lead a less regimented, more organic existence [see old slackers site, 2003.03.19 entry ... hmm - i guess that was a while ago]. These days I seem obsessed with internal consistency, to the point of, well, pedantry. I almost sound like the spelling bee kid sometimes:



Mmm ... my first YouTube link. I am now officially entrenched in Blogosphere 2.0.

Can I just say this again?

I really don't like The White Stripes.

Bike2Work

Well - after years of agonizing, I finally rode my bike to work.

While I'm super excited about the personal and environmental benefits of this choice, it brought to light some interesting societal divisions among bicyclists. On the one hand you have your gear heads (we'll just call them hedz, shamelessly borrowing from RPM culture). The hedz are your hardcore bike nuts - they will often own several bikes (where several can span double digits), will pretty much *only* ride in spandex, and have several miscellaneous bike parts just floating around their garage to fuel what is now an obsession that easily costs them a few thousand dollars a year. Oh - and they're predominantly male. To these people I say, more power to you. Why, some of my best friends are ... ok - forget it. I will almost certainly never be one of them. There are things I get obsessive about - bike gear is just not one of them.

Which places me in the other camp. Utilitarian commuters that understand the ecological and economic benefits of riding, along with the loads of sexy indie cred it carries. Not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I've always found hipsters on bicycles terribly attractive. So yes - I'm riding to boost my cred. This is actually not dissimilar to vegetarianism - it just felt like a good idea on a number of different levels, even if there was a girl involved in the initiation.

Gossip

So apparently, The Arcade Fire stole this guy's basketball.

No wait ... they didn't.

Such is the blogosphere.

kiddie cred

you know the hipsters are breeding when rough trade puts out a kid's record.

and yes - satya has a copy (thanks shal) - duh!

Managed to get out to Club 6 last night to check out Badawi. Dark freaked-out dubby stuff - quite nice. This was my second show post-Satya. Caught up with some folks at the show, showed sissy around the "scene" (whatever that even means these days), lost my voice trying to talk over the music, and heard an Egyptified version of Walk Like an Egyptian. Overall - a good time.

We are overflowing with stuff in the house. If there is anything that you want to take off my hands, let me know. It doesn't even matter what that something is. We desperately need to purge - At this point I'm perfectly happy giving away stuff we may not even possess.

Satya owns two monkeys now - We've named them Fibonacci and Roadkill. She appears to like teh monkey brainzzz.

Oaklandish

Baron Davis is a G.O.D.! Did anyone see the Warriors last night? Ohmigod they pummeled the Jazz. Firebombed them, even. And that dunk ... mmm mmm ... that DUNK!

I have never seen a team having this much fun playing ball. They had no business even being here. These are the Golden State Warriors, fer chrissakes. They haven't been to the playoffs in 12 years. Eliz didn't realize that Oaktown even had an NBA team until now. But yes - these same Warriors are playing with a fuck-you attitude and swagger. Don Nelson doing interviews with a can of beer. B. Davis and Stephen Jax acting like the baddest mo fos in the world. And the beard! This is how we do it, Oakland style.

funny thing - this has never happened to me

Why is it that I have never woken up in the morning thinking, "I am a shadow dancer"?

Here's the Question ...

would you rather be an uncle-chod or a potato-fucker?

daily dump

I just realized that this blog thing is more rewarding when I'm updating regularly. The idea being that the more I write, the more I will have to say. Even if I don't have anything to say.

Speaking of which (not really, but it was a convenient segue), Google now lets you blog in हिंदी। If the Hindi text does not render properly on your machine, you may need to turn on multilingual support, as described here. For some reason, the default rendering messes up the little ई मात्रा, and does strange things with compound letters. If you cannot read Hindi, then just admire the roundy-ness of the letters.

Speaking of which - and this time we actually have a sequitur - I have this weird recurring nightmare where I find myself having to take a Hindi test the next day (or sometimes a Gujarati test, in a variant of the same dream) and I cannot seem to remember anything other than a few basic words. My life somehow depends on this test, but I can never find the right words for anything. I've actually been having this dream for years now, and is the closest thing I have to a recurring nightmare. And yes, my hindi has probably deteriorated to the point where I have a pretty hard time not reverting to English semi-regularly. For example, I cannot remember the word for "baby". Looks like someone will be joining Satya in her Sunday Hindi school lessons. Gads - then I might actually have to take a Hindi test. Noooooo .....

no cat no cradle

When the last living thing

has died on account of us,

how poetical it would be

if Earth could say,

in a voice floating up

perhaps

from the floor

of the Grand Canyon,

“It is done.”

People did not like it here.

Kurt Vonnegut - you will be missed. Dearly missed.

Flashback

Six months ago I was in Austin, TX. I rented a little red Chevy Aveo, which pretty much screams cheap-o economy rental. I peeled out of the parking lot and drove down the drag, windows rolled down, volume cranked up to 11, with the radio blasting: "You are tuned into Fresh Air with Terry Gross on NPR".

Stephen Elliott

I read this little piece in last month's Believer and it made me cry. And it made me happy to think that beauty is alive and well.

http://www.believermag.com/issues/200703/?read=article_elliott

My Friend

My friend is very nice. He comes over and does the dishes for us sometimes. He has brown hair. My friend has two cars that don't run. I am glad that my friend is not a brain surgeon. My friend is very good at many things like bicycles and dogs. My friend has a very nice girlfriend. He writes songs about his girlfriend. He also writes songs about me, like the Shrey Doggie song and the N. Shrey Dawg song. I like my friend very much. My friend is 34 years old.

Written by Shreyas D., age 30

cell division

At the risk of turning this into a running baby blog, which has never been my intention, I have to say this - we reached a significant milestone yesterday. Satya outgrew her newborn diapers. This means that she is probably growing.

Alive

Satya just slept through the night for the first time. That was my first contiguous 6 hour block of sleep in 37 days. Yippee!

If I had one of those tardoid mood icons, a la livejournal, it would say: "Current Mood: Awake"!!

Food, Sex or Cars

Ok - not really, but the old SNL skit, did some pretty funny stuff with Hobson-esque choice, where each alternative is equally attractive (or unattractive). My version from last night:
- Guinness, Gordon Biersch Pilsner or low-fat organic yogurt.

We also used to play this idiotic game in college that went along the same lines, but with a "who would you rather bang?" bent. It was mad fun. For example, who would you rather bang: Arnold Schwarzenegger or Jesse Ventura?

I'll occasionally bring this feature back, as I think of better examples.

TV Funhouse

One of the perks of early babyhood (the catch-all term for the baby experience from the perspective of all concerned parties) is the amount of unstructured free time you must spend at home. Don't get me wrong - there is a lot of work involved (diaper changes, feedings, keeping everything else in the household at least minimally functional), but there is also a lot of down time, given that babies tend to sleep for around 16 hours a day. This is the perfect excuse to catch up on all the useless pop culture that you've missed out on in the past several years since you've sworn off television. And Netflix makes this available to you in convenient, easy-to-digest chunks. In glorious Technicolor*. Commercial free. Without the annoying inter-episode cliffhangers that leave you irritated and unsatisfied for weeks, possibly months. TV on DVD, here I come! Now watching:

• Lost - Season 1
  
• Dr. Who (The new BBC series) - Season 1
  
• The L-Word - Season 3
  
• City of Men
  
• The Office - Season 2
  
• The Office (BBC) - Series 2
  

*Why do people still use the term "Technicolor"? What does it even mean?**
**Yes - I could look it up in Wikipedia, but that's not the point, is it?

your moment of zen

demographics

In about 4 hours, I will be 30 years old. Approximately 68 hours ago, I became a dadzorz. Somehow I don't feel old or anything. The hype around 30 is overrated. In my mind, 34 is a far more significant milestone. That is when I will no longer be a part of that crucial 18-34 demographic, that the media and marketing folks adore. Four years from now is when I'm going to be truly freaking out.

satya marjane

we'll be uploading more pics on flickr

thanks to everyone for the wishes. we're all doing fantastic!

-satya, elizabeth and shreyas

2cm and counting

2cm this past Thursday. Contractions started coming and going this weekend. And still we wait. I realize that this part is slow, and could last for days. I want to meet our baby, but it is probably best to wait. Allow it to get a little bigger. I promise there will be pictures when the time comes.

now reading

Not that you really wanted to know, but I like keeping these little notes, so that I can look back and nostalgificate.

• The Schematics of Computation - Vincent Manis, James Little. Oddly enough, this seems to be fulfilling my light, recreational reading quota. I'm trying to rediscover Scheme and functional programming, from a more advanced and mature, post-CS degree perspective.
  
• The Shuttered Room - H.P.Lovecraft. This is currently my bathroom reading. It is kinda fun to get all turn of the century spooky, while in the loo.
  
• The Birth Partner - Penny Simpkin. This is what I spend every free moment absorbing, in, what is bound to be, a valiant but essentially impossible attempt to be "prepared" for childbirth.
  

hrrrrrr

Seriously, how has Tuvan throat singing not become the rage among all the indie kids. This stuff is fantastic, bizarre and just plain brilliant. Check out Huun Huur Tu or Chrigilchin if you get a chance [Link]

Eanie Meany

This song has been stuck in my head for over SIX months now. Literally!

Jim Noir - Eanie Meany [Video links at the bottom]

Yes, this is the song from that Adidas World Cup commercial: Jose 10+ ... remember?

Best Records of 2006

I've posted my list on the KALX website. After the jump, we replicate the list here, for your convenience.

1. The Knife - Silent Shout (Rabid/Mute)
2. Boat - Songs That You Might Not Like (Magic Marker)
3. Jose Gonzales - Veneer (Hidden Agenda)
4. Islands - Return to Sea (Equator)
5. Motohiro Nakashima - I Dreamt Constellations Sang (LOAF)
6. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - Etiquette (Tomlab)
7. Juana Molina - Son (Domino)
8. Two Gallants - What the Toll Tells (Saddle Creek)
9. Daniel Johnston - Welcome to my World (High Wire Music)
10. Barbara Morgenstern - The Grass is Always Greener (Monika)
11. Thom Yorke - The Eraser (XL)
12. Various Artists - CD86: 48 TRACKS FROM THE BIRTH OF INDIE POP (Castle)
13. Herbert - Scale (K7)
14. The Trucks - The Trucks (Clickpop)
15. Dirty on Purpose - Hallelujah Sirens (North Street)
16. DJ Shadow - The Outsider (Universal Motown)
17. Chin Up Chin Up - This Harness Can't Ride Anything (Suicide Squeeze)
18. TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain (4AD/Interscope)
19. Chirgilchin - Will Teach (Pure Nature Music)
20. soundtrack - STRANGER THAN FICTION (Columbia/Sony Music)

And I'm doing a "Best of 2006" show, which will feature selections from the above list and more. Tune in tonight 9pm pacific. We even have a live mp3 stream these days.

The sum of the internal energy of the system plus the product of its volume multiplied by the pressure exerted on it by its surroundings

We even fight dorky, as is apparent from this recent interchange:

S: Hey Elizabeth, what is the exact definition of the term enthalpy?
E: I really don't want to have this conversation right now, Shreyas.

:)

This Blog is a Mess

The New York Times did a piece on this a couple of weeks ago, but you need to have a paid subscription to view this. Instead, listen to this wonderful segment on NPR, extolling the virtues of clutter and mess. Mess creates a kind of randomness that may lead to forming unexpected connections ... intuitive leaps ... fresh perspectives ... new discoveries ... apophenia ... pattern recognition ... William Gibson ... cyberpunk ... umm, wait, how did I get here anyway?

Anyway, this is your new year's resolution. Embrace your mess. Let it guide you. Do you really want to argue with Einstein? (“If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk?”)