What's up with Aerosmith?

Of all the developments in popular music over the last decade, none is as satisfying as the disappearance of Aerosmith from radio and the popular consciousness. To today’s ear, their music is so stultified and artless that it is difficult to appreciate how popular they were. We’re talking like three decades of on-and-off strings of multi-platinum albums here — Wikipedia it.

Now, I don’t typically begrudge anyone their cheap thrills, but there’s something particularly annoying about this particular band, and I think I’ve recently realized what it is. Consider AC/DC. Even their fans acknowledge they make stupid music (erm, “but fun!”). Now the Rolling Stones. Not the smartest band ever, but certainly smarter. (Yes, also just straight-up better, but follow along here, I’m trying to, like, make a point or something.) So, I think the problem is that a lot of people think of Aerosmith as falling in between these two bands on the scale of rock band intelligence.

And they are just wrong. Aerosmith is precisely as stupid as AC/DC. If the truth of this realization is not immediately obvious, a little side-by-side listening will convince you more easily than objective argument.

Aerosmith’s fundamental problem is that sometime in the late 80s, they began to buy into this misperception themselves, and this confusion led to a streak of pop-rock deck, beginning with the infamous Janie’s Got a Gun and proceeding sharply downward. Through most of the 90s, despite having obviously worn out their usefulness, they were pretty fucking ubiquitous, prominently featured on pop radio, teenbop movies, television, video games, and (!) a Walt Disney World ride. Around the turn of the century, they dropped one last mega-turd, the prom-ready I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing, and probably did a Superbowl halftime show or something.

And then something wonderful happened. They vanished from the popular consciousness. I don’t remember the moment when I realized that my life was Aerosmith-free. It’s like when a nasty smell gradually clears … you just suddenly notice that it’s gone. And while I gather from reading the disgustingly detailed “history” section of their Wikipedia entry that the Aerosmith boys are keeping plenty busy (mostly getting injured while touring, which is sort of funny in itself). But it’s become downright hard to run into news of them, or their music, without actively seeking it out. And that’s something we can all get behind.

Posted: Tuesday March 9, 2010 by Alesh Houdek · Permalink · Comment

Oval - Wohnton

We could really use a 5,000 word look back at the glitch movement from Pitchfork or someone, couldn’t we? It ain’t happening, but in any such feature, Oval would play feature centrally. They began by experimenting with manipulated CDs (played in primitive CD players that wouldn’t give up in the face of extreme digital errors), and soon were exploring complicated computer-based composition. At its best, their music was hazy, gentle, and abstract; here’s a great example. They released about a half dozen albums through the 90s, oscillating between accessible collage anchored with the (surprisingly melodic) digital skipping and a completely abstract soundscape (Dok being an example of the latter, and maybe their best work).

The one album that is all but forgotten is their 1993 debut, Wohnton. Long discontinued, it is from before Oval was just a solo project for Markus Popp, and features, unexpectedly, singing. We’re talking here a sort of untrained German warble, which appeared on less then half the songs. What’s impressive is that while the group didn’t think so, and never attempted anything like it again, the singing actually works? Kind of? But so I was looking for one of these weird charming lyrics for “my music video blog“http://alesh.tumblr.com/ the other day, and was bummed to not find any. But hey, I’ve got the technology. I decided to make one myself. Warum nicht?

So without any further ado, here’s my little video:

Posted: Monday March 8, 2010 by Alesh Houdek · Permalink · Comment [1]

Weekendly clickables XXII

• You love Paul Krugman, right? You should read the profile of him (and his wife! Who pretty much co-writes his columns with him it turns out!) in the New Yorker. And check him out on Charlie Rose in 1999, sort of predicting our current economic crisis (tho he’s predicting it for 2002, not 2008). He’s been on Charlie Rose 20 times in all.
• Should babies be allowed in bars?
• TheAwl post of the day: The Five Kinds of Appeal to Authority You Meet on the Internet.
• To the Best of Our Knowledge on alcoholism and other addictions. (I’ve no idea why TTBOOK is still doing Real Audio… you’re much better off finding the episode on iTunes.
• Recently discovered audio interview with Malcolm X.
• David Byrne writes about being on TED.
• Dylan Fareed’s “We Are So Good Together” print. As of this writing there are 345 of the 11×14” left for $50, and you will kick yourself if you don’t get one before they sell out.
• The Last Resort Letters. On board each of the UK’s 20 nuclear submarines, there’s safe. And inside the safe, there’s another safe. And inside that safe, there’s a HAND WRITTEN letter from the current prime minister, instructing the captain of the submarine what to do in case a nuclear attack has destroyed Britain. Nobody knows what the letters say (they’re destroyed, unread, each time a new prime minister is sworn into power), but presumably they tell the captain to not bother launching a retaliatory attack, because what would be the point? A topic deserving of some unpacking, which Ira Glass does in this episode of TAL.
• Learn guitar in 10 minutes with Nashville Pussy (via Klosterman’s Twitter).
• I haven’t been watching Saturday Night Live regularly for a long time, but as far as I can tell yesterday’s was maybe the best episode in like a decade and a half. Also, Hulu has whole episodes as of recently. So, Saturday Night Live with Zach Galifianakis. And, regardless of how you feel about the Vampire Weekend issue, they are great on this.

Posted: Sunday March 7, 2010 by Alesh Houdek · Permalink · Comment [2]

11111 Lincoln Road

Herzog & de Meuron’s 11111 project recently opened on the west end of the Lincoln Road pedestrian mall. It’s a shocking structure — large, raw, and unfinished looking (there is some ongoing construction on the top levels, but the basic appearance is as it will be). The architects were able to pull variances, convincing government officials that the size of the building was determined by aesthetic reasons, but an effort to maximize capacity. And indeed, several of the levels are soaringly high, while others have the cramped height of a standard parking garage.

The building is “mixed use,” though the majority of it is open and designated for parking (currently $15 flat rate, and well utilized). The “its a garage” mindset may explain how this project was sold to planners and citizens, since there is precedent on South Beach for unusual garages (and anyway there is a pretty universal agreement that parking garages should be ugly). But I suspect that many residents are horrified by it, and this makes it all the more delicious.

The core of the building is a completely unconventional staircase, with every level blending into the next, attached with concrete stairs that jut in chaotic directions. Generally the details do not play up the under-construction thing, but do note the safety-mesh like steel wire on the railings (it is actually very high-quality braided wire).

Most of the retail is on the ground floor, with one solitary (and unfinished) location on the 5th floor. There is also some residential space on the top floors, but this is still under construction and probably off limits for good. The horizontal cables that make up the guard rails are set back a foot or two from the ledges, and they tend to disappear, creating spectacular vistas.

The lighting and other metal details are stridently mimimal, and most of the signage is painted onto the building in oversize Helvetica. The whole thing comes across as a monument against design-by-committee.

A view from the rose-colored windows of the movie theater across the mall. One of the best aspects of the project is Herzog & de Meuron’s transformation of the pedestrian area for a block or two around the project. They brough in black and white stone and created a slightly irregular surface, with landscaping inspired by the Everglades.

There is probably more going on with the planters then is immediately obvious, they are almost an exhibit recreating what’s happening 25 miles to the west.

I’m pretty sure they actually went out there and hand-picked the trees.

… replete with air plants. They are using some sort of cloth rope to hold them up while they root, not the standard 2×4 treatment.

The building is cleverly integrated into the bank structure next door, with a row of retail on one side, and crafty connections on several levels.

It’s difficult to convey how much the structure dominates the road. It certainly looms over the pretty movie theater, but in a way that I found pretty complimentary.

Here’s the view from the Publix parking garage, about a third of a mile away.

One more look inside at those angular staircases. Here on the second level there’s also a sculpture of angular metal, suggesting that all the supporting rebar in the building is like this.

I don’t know how the residents feel, but the people walking around and inside the garage seemed pretty engaged and impressed. People admired the pedestrian details, and there was some walking around and photographing inside the structure.

Posted: Wednesday March 3, 2010 by Alesh Houdek · Permalink · Comment [6]

Who am I? I’ve been asked to submit a 100-word bio of myself for a panel at MoCA on March 17th. So… you people know me, right? I never ask you for anything, right? Submit a sentence for my bio! One line! I promise to use some of them! But quick — I promised to get them a thing by the end of the day Wednesday.

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Weekendly clickables XXI

• Are you (like me) one of the half-dozen people in South Florida who didn’t go see the Dalai Lama last week? Well you can watch this guy explain happiness. He’s got the same Tibetan monk outfit, and a bonus Fwensh akhson. (However, I watched the whole talk and I’m still not happy, so I guess I want my money back or something?) (You may also want the advanced version.)
• TheAwl: “A stunning new survey reveals that more than 40% of Texans do not believe humans and dinosaurs existed at the same time.”
• David Foster Wallace Audio Project, via Chuck Klosterman’s Twitter.
• Speaking of Twitter, you should follow Jay Rosen. This 5-minute talk is a good intro to what he’s all about. “Spam is Hate!”
• This guy stopped drinking for 30 days. Crazy.
• It’s all fun and games until Google reveals your location to your abusive ex-husband.
• Remember Art Salon at Art Basel? Did you got to any of those talks? Yeah, me neither, and it’s a good thing we didn’t waste our time, because they’re now all online.
• Terrifying recently released 9/11 World Trade Center aerial photos.
• So! Everybody loves Vampire Weekend. Just that there’s something about their music that’s a little troubling? Maybe? Well, Jessica Hopper thought she had her finger on it, but boy did this guy not like that, and went on to explain the rules of the game, some cultural thing that apparently we are all doing and shouldn’t be? If you’ve still got time to kill, you may want to read this in the context of all that.
• Toast with Kumquat Marmalade and Goat Cheese
• Jesse Schell’s terrifying vision of the future, where every coke can has a touch screen and a video camera, and everything is a crappy little game designed to get you to look at ads.
• You have two weeks left to get in your submissions for the Knight Arts Challenge. Get that brain storming.

Posted: Monday March 1, 2010 by Alesh Houdek · Permalink ·

What will make or break the iPad

OK, I have all these links that I’ve been meaning to assemble into a weekendly clickables post for like a month now, but the fact is that they’re like 99% stale at this point. And what’s interesting is that it’s my iPhone’s fault — I do so much of my web consumption on that thing these days, and it’s — just — hard enough to turn around and create blog posts on that it frequently doesn’t happen.*

Which brings me to the iPad. Which, first of all, but correct me if I didn’t predict it almost a year ago? Yes, I did. The big difference between between the iPad and what I predicted is Mobile Safari, which I think is also going to determine whether the iPad will work for me (and, by extension, the billions of people who are LIKE ME). I currently use Perfect Browser, which is an improvement over iPhone’s built-in Safari, but uses the same rendering engine and is in many ways tied down in the same way. All sorts of little things are difficult or impossible to do.

Just by the nature of its larger screen, the iPad alleviate some of these pains. And we’ve seen that the Apple apps will be custom-tailored to the device, and more powerful then their small-screen rivals. But whether this turns out to be enough to make the device useful enough to earn its $500 price tag remains to be seen. We don’t need that much, really. But I think that it’s going to take opening up the platform to some true alternative browsers. I want Chrome and/or Firefox, otherwise I’m going to be spending lots and lots of time at the Apple store playing with this thing before I put my money down.

* If you want to be bored with the details, it’s just hard grabbing URL links from all sorts of places and jumping to my web-based blogging window and pasting them in, then jumping somewhere else and being able to return. Plus there are scores of little inconveniences everywhere, wherein websites recognize that you’re on an iPhone and put you, in one fashion or another, into a sandbox. Show me how to get to ask.metafilter.com’s search box in mobile safari. Show me how to post an embedded video to tumblr. The list goes on…

Posted: Sunday February 21, 2010 by Alesh Houdek · Permalink · Comment [6]

What goes on: February artwalk and more

OK, here we are at Lost & Found, home of awesome food and bafflingly slow service. Check out this harmless-looking sculpture that adorns the tables, which my friends and I deconstructed: taken from the top, we have a cluster or orchids (the most vaginal of all flowers, right?), right under that little egg-like shapes, then a column of bananas, all planted atop a metal cup with a cock on it. Not pictured is a wisp of another type of flower protruding from the orchids on one side which apparently are called baby’s breath.

Catalina’s pretty paintings at Hardcore.

Also at Hardcore, Kate Krets’ man-eating vagina purse.

Leyden Rodriguez-Casanova updates Locust Projects with a carpet installation. I was exited to learn that the supporting structures were built to support people, so these things are completely climbable, but I’m bummed out about the seams around the protruding pieces.

Christina Pettersson at Spinello. She had some fantastic drawings that you ought to go see, but the thing that I like about her work is its connection to the physical world and her intervention in it, so this video really captivated me.

I think this dog was sent by Satan to tell me something important, but I slipped out before he got a chance. Missed opportunity!

I don’t know why we don’t have poetry exhibitions more often at Bas Fisher. Which reminds me, you have like less then a month left to get your submissions in to the Knight Foundation for that amazing project you are totally going to do.

If you only have one cupcake at the Friends with You store make it a red velvet cupcake. Honestly, I wanted these to be better than they were. They were good, but I guess I was really in the mood for an amazing cupcake, and it does not seem like it would have been that hard to pull off, right? Isn’t it just a matter of putting in a ton of Crisco or something? Whatever, any cupcake is better then no cupcake.

Wow, Danny makes a really good Pee-wee. Also, I think it has now—I think!—been six images with nothing vagina-related.

I think that if there is one lesson that planet graffiti can learn from planet art, it is the importance of proper illumination. Step it up, folks.

A series of mixed-media bunny pieces by Shelter Serra in the Castillo Annex. Go look!

Gallery Diet. Did not get the name of the artist, too scared to go look at the website.

More unexpected poetry, here made to order on the corner of 23rd Street one block over from NW 2nd Avenue.

Impenetrable film at World Class Boxing. Or maybe not. Impenetrable, that is.

I certainly enjoyed Sylvie Fleury’s crushed Fiat more. So, uh, what is it with all the pink things, anyway?

Outside Snitzer, an optimistic Bert Rodriguez semi-appologetically explains that Fred locks up at 9 pm, SHARP, and you my friend would be well served by showing up more promptly in the future. Or better yet coming to the artist’s reception the night before, as you were told to do.

Oh right, so the Noise Conference! Here’s Rene Barge and Gustavo Matamoros performing at Sweat. (Actually, I got there late, too, and it’s really Gustavo performing and Rene putting his shit away, but the sounds were sweet!)

And now on to Churchill’s for the Main Event! And if the rules were (1) No Droning (2) No Laptops (3) No Mixing Boards, then this guy was breaking at least two of the three but no matter, he was pretty incredible. I’m eventually going to go back into the computer and make this picture much darker and more dramatic, but yes, that is a big lump on the back of his head, and sorry but I couldn’t help but wonder whether that had anything to do with how amazing his music was.

Here he is literally flinging his sound all over a stunned Miami audience.

And when I say “stunned” I am not exaggerating. Also: wow. Between this and the photo from in front of Snitzer I think we have proof of need for a new Miami fashion photo blog. Where are the camera-toting UM club kids when you need them? Come on camera-toting UM club kids, get it together here.

You know what the other thing about the Noise Conference is? It’s actually not that loud. I guess maybe certain acts are pretty loud, but it’s not at all what you’d expect. It’s quite pleasant actually, and really the single distinguishing characteristic these bands all share is an inclination towards the theatrical. (I also was going to say something here about being sandwiched between all these people, and just how disgusting my clothes smelled when I got home, but really, just nevermind.)

Wow… hate to end on a somber note, but here but for the grace of God goes you if you keep driving drunk. Big cars may protect you in a crash, but I sure hope it’s true that small nimble cars are more likely to let you evade a crash before you get stuck in it. Let’s all be careful out there my people.

Posted: Friday February 19, 2010 by Alesh Houdek · Permalink · Comment [4]

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A morsel of Haitian history

First, the bits that you already probably more or less know: in the 1700s and 1800s, European powers gradually colonized huge swaths of the world, including the Americas, Africa, and the Middle East. (For an explanation of how this happened, Guns, Germs, and Steel is highly recommended, although I can not be held responsible for any blown minds.) The big players here were Britain, France, Spain, and Portugal. The island of Hispanola was fought over by Spain and France, partially because this was fun and partially because it was just the perfect place for the production of coffee, sugar, and indigo (yes, indigo). They settled things in 1697 with the Treaty of Ryswick, which basically carved the island down the middle, giving the French the western half and the Spanish the eastern half. And for the next hundred years or so, the western half thrived. Came a huge influx of French, and with them African slaves, into what became one of the more brutal slavery regimes of the time — a third of the Africans died within a few years of arriving.

In 1789 came the French Revolution, and word spread to the colony and caught fire among the slaves, who started a revolution of their own. Napoleon sent in a few tens of thousands of soldiers, but vast numbers of them were killed by yellow fever the devil, and by 1804 the nation of Haiti was established. (Bonus fact: about ten thousand refugees left the island during this time, and ended up settling in New Orleans, in effect doubling its population and forever changing its culture.)

Now here’s the bit you didn’t know. In 1825, the King of France, Charles X, sent over an armada of ships and soldiers, and under threat of invasion, war, and re-enslavement, then-president Jean-Pierre Boyer signed an “indemnity” under which the French recognized Haiti’s independence in return of a payment of 90 million Francs (actually, it was originally 150 million, reduced to 90 in 1838). And where did Haiti get the money to make this deal? They borrowed it, of course, and from French banks. And what sort of terms did they get? Well, I believe the term is “merde.” (In case you are wondering, the internet’s best guess is that this would be $21 billion in today’s money.)

But whatever, right? These sort of deals are made all the time, and they’re usually dropped when the leadership changes or comes to its mind. But no. For the next hundred years, Haiti made payments on this debt while its people mostly practiced subsistence farming. Instability from it resulted in a crippling series of coups (38 in Haiti’s 200-year history) and left an obviously problematic political and economic heritage.

Does this explain everything that’s happened in Haiti since? Of course not. But it sure does explain some of it.

Image source.

Posted: Thursday February 4, 2010 by Alesh Houdek · Permalink · Comment [3]

What's up with the Senate?

Along with the Electoral College, the US Senate is one of those anti-democratic vestiges of the state-centric zeitgeist that existed at the dawn of the US. But nevermind! I bet you didn’t realize that “the rules of the Senate” (so nonchalantly referred to in recent news) are not only mind-buggingly strange, but actually completely mutable? OK, check out this big, from the 5th Section of Article 1 of a little something called the Constitution:

Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behavior, and, with the Concurrence of two-thirds, expel a Member.

So, like, right now we have the 111th United States Congress, right? Well, when the session began, Senators sort of casually voted in the rules from the previous Congress without much fanfare. But the truth is that they could just as easily voted in any other rules. Say, Robert’s Rules of Order. Or nomic (can’t possibly put enough parenthetic exclamation marks(!) after this, so I won’t try). Just as easily, they can change the rules any time they want. As in, it takes a majority — not a super-majority — of Senators to change the rules. Which is not what you usually hear, right? You hear that it takes a super-majority, 67 votes, to change the rules of the senate, which is part of Rule 22, yadda yadda, which is why you need 60 votes to override a filibuster, which of late has become a virtual-filibuster where Senators just say, “yeah, we’ll filibuster that,” which has become increasingly used over the last couple of years (curses, Republicans!), which means that you need 60 votes to get anything done in our friggin government, which means no healthcare for YOU because of Martha Coakley’s “blah, whatever, finally I get my Senate seat”-attitude lost her the Massachusetts special election and that was the Democrats’ (capital-D, keep up here) 60th seat. Right, that. That Rule 22 can be overturned with just a simple majority, which is to say 51 votes.

Harry Reid could (for-realz could, not theoretical-could) make a motion to throw out the filibuster rule, the 59 remaining Democrats could vote it in, and they could pass your healthcare reform this afternoon.

And they might! But probably not. This, by-the-way/you-see, is what the Republicans were talking about when they talked about the “Nuclear option” back in the 90s when they had a majority (but nearly as big a majority as the Democrats have right now). Reid went ballistic back then at the suggestion of them doing that, so he’d have to eat his words a little bit. But when the Republicans are — have been — in fact promised to use every procedural trick in the Rules to fight health-care reform, a little bit of procedural push-back might be in order. Especially when it allows 40% of the Senators (which, if you do the math, can equal the representation of as little as 12% of the voting public of the US) to block anything they don’t like.

But whatever, they’ll do whatever they want to do. What I’m suggesting is that a little fun reading for the next week or so might be the Rules of the Senate and maybe even the Constitution.

Sources: Going Nuclear, Slate. Explaining The American Filibuster, Fresh Air.

Posted: Wednesday January 27, 2010 by Alesh Houdek · Permalink · Comment [12]

How to help Haiti. Meaning, how you should help. Short answer: give money, not canned goods or other bullshit. And try not to restrict your giving to the present catastrophe, because preventative measures for future disasters leverage your gift. (Another way to look at it: lots of people are going to give for this disaster. Caring visionaries have the guts to look beyond today.) Anyway. You can text “HAITI” to “90999” to have a $10 charge applied to your phone bill and sent to the Red Cross, which is fine if you’re cheap and lazy I guess. I’d suggest giving how much you think you can really afford, giving to an established organization such as the Red Cross, Oxfam, or Doctors Without Borders, and not directing your money specifically towards this incident, so the charity is free to use the overflow towards tomorrow’s good works once they do what they can about the present emergency. You also need to take a long-term interest in Haiti, and lobby your congressperson to do right towards it. Remember that Haiti was in dire straights even before yesterday, when all you could think about was Conan O’Brien and the fucking weather.

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Clay Shirky asks: If you were going to found a new college today, what would you do? Answers here. My contribution: “A pretty modest change to the college system would be to knock down the barriers between departments and schools. Let students use whatever resources they can justify for whatever ends they can defend. Also, require anyone to start a blog at least 6 months before admission — a public forum for what you hope to accomplish, and a log for what’s happening as you succeed or fail — permanently accessible to school admin, professors, and the world.”

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Ryoji Ikeda Radio So I’m reading Haunted Weather by David Toop, and right off he starts talking about Ryoji Ikeda a Japanese experimental musician / sound artist who’s music is like a more cerebral version of Pan Sonic. I totally recommend the Toop book, btw (his previous, Ocean of Sound, had a lot to do with how I listen to music), but it demands a suitable soundtrack. Here for you as much as for me, I give you:

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Your year-end task list

I was in a store yesterday and Christmas music was playing, but presumably that’s the last vestige of “the holidays” now that it’s The Monday After. And so we’re on to the next thing, which is the end of the year. Party party. But not so fast; isn’t there some stuff you’re supposed to take care of before the first of the new year? Things that, if you’re going to do them, now is the time to do them?

• Charitable giving: Peter Singer has figured out how much you should give to charity, and there’s a calculator on his site. For your broke ass, it’s probably 1% of your income. You do it now, and you can write it off on your taxes in April. We were just talking about a very closely related thing, so I’m not going to bug you — you either have the inclination or you don’t. Oxfam if you prefer to keep it easy, Kiva if you prefer a little more interactive.
• The tax thing just doesn’t go to money you give away — you can buy stuff for yourself if you can write it off your taxes, too. If you do freelance work, you can write off toys for your home office. Even if you don’t, there are year-end tax tips you should look over, and here are a few more related things to stress out about.
• New Year’s Resolutions: If this is your thing, you’ve probably got a list together. I would humbly suggest three reasons for switching to vegetarianism: (1) eating meat is terrible for your health, (2) meat production is terrible for the planet, and (3) say what you will about the abstract ethics of animals eating animals, but the way that 99% of livestock production happens in this country is indefensible. I recommend Jonathan Safran Foer’s article on becoming vegetarian, which is just a pleasure to read, as a good starting point for thinking about this. Note that incremental “99%” approaches are fine here; you could allow yourself one meat-inclusive meal per week and do almost as much good.
• If you are at the very end of the anal scale, you could do a personal annual review, and maybe publish an annual report.

Posted: Monday December 28, 2009 by Alesh Houdek · Permalink · Comment [2]