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Who's Afraid of Y2K? Looper Discography [1999] Up a Tree [2000] The Geometrid [2002] The Snare Read More Looper http://weheartmus... Formed by ex-Belle & Sebastian bassist, Stuart David and his wife, Karn in the late 90s, they fir...

It's hard to believe that it's been a decade since Y2K.

In 1999, the doomsayers predicted the end of the world as we know it - in the form of computers all over the world crashing because of the so-called millennium bug. It never made sense to me, I mean if it were a problem, couldn't you just change the date ?

I spent the New Year's eve in Vietnam, away from civilization. The next day, nothing changed. Not even an incident. All that scare were for thing. But it wasn't all for nothing, the Y2K bug inspired quite a few things - among them, music, televisions, and books.

WHO'S AFRAID OF Y2K?
geometrid.co.uk ♥ myspace.com

There was a period when I tracked down all the projects that were related to Belle & Sebastian, including The Gentle Waves/Isobel Campbell and Looper. Looper was was basically B&S's Stuart David and his wife, Karn, who actually met via penpalism (as told by their song, Impossible Things).

They did garner a bit of fame through "Mondo '77", a really great catchy "binary"-video gamey song (it's been featured in Vanilla Sky, video games, and anti-drugs commercials). But unfortunately, their third (and final?) album, The Snare did not have any really catchy songs. The ruder and darker themed album was due to David's book The Peacock Manifesto (whos character also appears on the cover and songs of The Snare).

Anyway, in 1999, Looper released a double A-Side called Who's Afraid of Y2K? and Up A Tree Again, which I picked up, among other singles, at a Flaming Lips show (Looper was opening up for the band).

Both are excellent songs, although there were two remixes of "Up A Tree Again". I normally don't like remixes, but these were pretty different from the original album (which actually sounds pretty stale compared to these upbeat mixes). The "singles mix" of "Up a Tree Again" was interesting to say the least, focusing mostly on the "la-na-na-na" section and DJ-scratches, while the Chocolate Layers remix was pretty much only the "la-na-na-na" section.

Looking back, I suppose "Who's Afraid of Y2K?" song was a bit of novelty. Ironically enough, the song was awashed in electronic quirks and beats - all the things that Y2K would've destroyed supposedly.

Currently, Looper's on hiatus. I haven't heard much in terms of a new David novel or Looper release. Most of the recent releases were made free on their website, geometrid.co.uk.

BRAVE OLD WORLD
dccomics.com/vertigo

I thought the concept behind this William Messner-Loebs-written Vertigo mini-series was interesting enough: a group of computer hackers working on a solution to the Y2K bug at the end of 1999 - only to find themselves in 1900.

The series explored some interesting concept, like what would you do, if you had all this computer/understanding of technology, only to be trapped in a world that still operated via candlelight? The women in the comics had it worst, let's face it, women didn't exactly have freedom back then. And if you were doing something strange, you're a witch and killed, etc.

So what's the group to do to try and back to 2000? They had to build a computer, by "inventing" their own technology.

Like I said, a very interesting concept. It sort of got a bit boring towards the end (by the last issue, I didn't really care for the characters so much).

Vertigo comics has yet to collect this in a trade, I suppose after the Y2K fiasco, it probably wouldn't be worth reading. I mean, we all know as fantastic as going back in 1900 would be, it didn't happen - just like the Y2K didn't happen. Still, if you want to re-live what it was like, or what Messner-Loebs was thinking back in 1999.

PREPARE YOURSELF FOR Y10K

Chances are, I'll be dead, so I wouldn't care so much what would happen. Wikipedia thinks it's a problem, but I suspect by the year 10,000, that our computing technology would be so advance, it wouldn't amount to anything.

Until then, have a great New Year. Take care of each other. I'll see you in 2010.

 12/31/2009 22:29:36 ♥ vu () ♥weheartmusic.com♥twitter.com/weheartmusic♥news.weheartmusic.com

now that it is frosted.

Delicious Cupcakes

Is it me or is this not quite what they are supposed to look like?

Delicious Cupcakes

Karen Armstrong wrote Through the Narrow Gate in 1981 as a way to work through and express the difficulties and experiences she had as a nun in the 1960s. Armstrong has a spiritual worldview similar to my own and after reading A Spiral Staircase, I was curious to know more about her. Here are some passages I found interesting.

I knew only too well how much my parents longed for me to go to Oxford. Nobody in my family had ever gone there before and it seemed a paradise to them, a fairytale world intellectual perfection.

“No,” I said slowly. It was no good allowing them to cling to this hope. I felt their disappointment sharply fill the room. “No, I don’t think I want to do that now.”

“But what do you want to do?” my father asked unhappily.

“I want to be a nun.”

In the silence that followed, I sat, trembling slightly, feeling sick and excited. I had dreaded telling my parents, but now, for good or ill, the die was cast. (44)

The courage it takes a person to tell a loved one they are going in a different direction than expected is incredible and scary, especially when it involves religion. Armstrong captured this well in this passage and the ensuing discussion with her shocked parents.

“That’s the start [9 pm] of what we call the Great Silence, which lasts until after Mass the next morning. It’s a daily retreat, really,” she [Mother Albert] explained, “a time when we lovingly prepare to receive Christ in Holy Communion each day.” (81)

The idea of a set time of silence each day is intriguing. Some would say we are silent when we sleep. However, I am thinking about silence while being awake. I often seek silence in what I see to be an increasingly noisy world. This silence is both audible and visual.

She [Mother Katherine] paused and looked straight at me. “They’ve failed in courage somewhere. They’ve let themselves get enslaved by the training, by the letter of the rule and not its spirit. Of course we must be obedient. Of course we have to love God more than anyone else. But we’ve given Him ourselves and He wants us too. As we are, as you are. And the hard thing is to hang on to the inner lights that God sends you. To use your mind and your heart. The training is there to ensure that God always comes first, not our petty selfishness. But God.”

“How do you mean, they’ve failed in courage?”

“By clinging to the rules as to the rail of a swimming pool. Not being willing ever to go out of their depth and trust that God will hold them up. And, Sister, there’s too much of that in the Order. Far too much. The training, the way our superiors have ruled us, make it very difficult indeed for people to stop being afraid like that.” (247)

This idea of tightly clinging to human rules rather than succumbing to spiritual direction is so common in the human psyche. From my experience, rules provide needed structure during spiritual development. However, the line between reasonable structure and thoughtless obedience is fine. I needed spiritual structure at the beginning of my spiritual development. Once I reached a certain level of development, I needed the freedom to branch out and grow. This is where I needed permission (mainly from myself) to let go of the rules and go where God (the generic name I use for the Divine) is guiding me.

中公文庫『　猫』収録の有馬頼義著「お軽はらきり」に、ほろり涙を誘われて。

猫 (中公文庫)

大佛 次郎

This quote is often attributed to Gandhi: “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

People often complain about the characteristics of other people. Yet, many of these same people possess the very characteristics they despise in others. This is a lack of mindfulness, which is the inability to see reality.

Many people do not see they are everything they hate in other people. Their lack of mindfulness leads to harsh judgment of other people. However, this judgment is really a judgment of one’s self. Since there is a failure to see reality, a lack of compassion develops, and negative energy is emitted.

Once a person chooses to become mindful, they awaken to see their lack of compassion for another person is cultivated by hatred of their own self. They see how their choices affect others (both negative and positive). Mindful people learn to love both their own strengths and weaknesses. This love nurtures compassion, which shatters judgment.

One chooses to be mindful by letting go.

Let go of your grip on the past.

Let go of your grip on the future.

Let go of your pain.

Let go of your intellect.

Let go of your need to be right.

Let go of your need to express your opinion to others.

Let go of yourself.

Once a person lets go, they gain power to change. However, a person has to desire change and choose it freely. Coercion from outside sources does not work. Letting go is a choice. All one on the outside can do is to offer honest support to change, not justification of a person’s negative choices.

W♥M059 [download (51 min, 47 mb)]

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BRITPOPCAST #6: THE GIRLS OF BRITPOP (wave 2)

Theaudience - Penis Size and Cars

2 comments

The show was actually longer, but I'm including more Jarvis-stalking festivities until next week. This week is all about the second wave of girls of Britpop (the first wave consists of Powder, Sleeper, Salad, Echobelly, Elastica). Since we've talked so much about them already, I thought talking about the second wave was a little more interesting.

Second wave:

• Kenickie (Lauren Laverne - all girls band)
• Kenickie, believe it or not, was the only all-girls Britpop band.  There was another band called Fluffy around this era, but they were more hard-rock than brit-pop.  While Fluffy's ultimate was branded with "eight tits no talent", Kenickie was more loved in general.  While their music is often more polished punk/pop early on, they shifted their sound to more lounge for their second album.  Obviously the band was still in their infancy ... but eventually broke up shortly after the second album.
  
• Lush (Miki Berenyi & Emma Anderson)
• In early Lush's history, they were two best friends, Miki Berenyi & Emma Anderson.  They were fanzine producers, and started their own band based on their love of shoegazing music with their EPs and debut album Spooky. You can hear their love of melodies as they sing in and out.  Of course, when you have two songwriters, they often clash if they have other interests.  In this case, at the time Split came out in 1994, some of the songs were clearly "britpop"esque.  Even the naming of the album (Split) was an indication, between aggressive pop songs like "Kiss Chase" and "Hypocrite" - the britpop songs would later continue with "Ladykiller" and their ultimate britpop moment with Jarvis Cocker on "Ciao!"  While I did tend to like the Miki songs, Emma did coin a few great pop gems like "Shake Baby Shake" (which is about the love of her car).
  
• When we heard that drummer, Chris Acland committed suicide by hanging himself, we all knew the band would be split up after this.  And it's true, they never quite recover.  I was lucky enough to catch them before the tragedy and continued to follow to see what the band's been up to.  The last I heard, Emma is in Sing-Sing, which had a great pop song called "Feels Like Summer".
  
• Catatonia (Cerys Matthews)
• Since we previously talked about Catatonia in our previous Welsh Britpop bands, I'll only briefly mention them here.  The thing with Catatonia for me was that each of their song was either a hit or miss... no inbetween feeling.  I either hated or love it. But the songs I really love, I really love, so that makes up for them.  I love the way Cerys sings, in fact, all Welsh people have a particularly weird accent to them and it's always a nice earful when you do hear them sing or talk.  It's like they're speaking English, but learned it from another planet.
• Favorite songs: "Mulder & Scully", "I Am the Mob", "Karaokee Queen",  "Road Rage", "Dead from the Waist Down"
  
• Theaudience (Sophie Ellis-Bextor)
• This was a very brief band from 97-99, fronted by Sophie Ellis-Bextor - who went on to have a series of very successful Eurodisco releases.  I must admit, I never followed the band that much - they arrived a little too late for me.  I didn't buy their debut album (it was never released in the US), but managed to get their debut single, "I Got the Wherewithal".  The song is quite good, and even their b-side "Penis Size and Cars" is amusingly catchy.
  
• Bis (Amanda MacKinnon)
• I love this Scottish band.  Although they were far too "kiddish" in their cute unreadable spellings and anime-influence, they were pretty damn cute and catchy.  Songs like "Kandy Pop" topped many playlist around this time, although in retrospect, looking back, it was a pretty mindless dum (dumb as in DUM) song.  Unfortunately, many people, including myself, didn't regard Bis as a Britpop band, but they're often grouped in.  My favorite song: "Action & Drama"!
  

Honorable mentions:

• Black Box Recorder (Sarah Nixey)
• Very catchy/dancey, but not Britpop.  Their bassist is Luke Haines, formerly of the Britpop band The Auteurs.
  
• Dubstar (Sarah Blackwood)
• This British act came out during the birth of Britpop, but they were far too alternative-dance/electronica to be considered Britpop.  The singer is Sarah Blackwood, who, I reckon the band ditched toward their later music releases.
  
• Sneaker Pimps (Kelli Dayton)
• Fluffy
  
• Republica (Saffron)
  
• Fat Les (Lily Allen sings on their last single???)
  

 12/30/2009 03:45:48 ♥ vu () ♥weheartmusic.com♥twitter.com/weheartmusic♥news.weheartmusic.com