The Go-Betweens es uno de mis grupos favoritos y en mi opinión, esta es una de las mejores canciones que se han escrito dentro del genero pop-rock. Tiene todos los elementos necesarios para serlo: órgano de dos varos, guitarras jangly, ritmo propulsivo (¿cuánto va a que les hace mover el pie?) y sobretodo, una letra increíble de Grant Mclennan, a true Hipster. Además, según mi chunky ipod (con tanto uso, quien sabe como sigue funcionando), es la canción que más escuchada en el 2007. Feliz Año Nuevo . . . may you keep warm.

The Go-Betweens – That Way (mp3)
Before Hollywood
Rough Trade, 1983
Cómprenlo@insound.com

“Mao still has at least a symbolic hold over the Chinese economy, even though it began to blossom only after death removed his suffocating hand. His portrait is emblazoned on China’s currency, on bags, shirts, pins, watches and whatever else can be sold by the innumerable entrepreneurial capitalists that he ground beneath his heel when in power. No other recent leader of a viable country (outside North Korea, in other words) is so honoured—not even ones that did a good job. It was not a nurturing management style that won Mao this adulation. According to Jung Chang’s and Jon Halliday’s “Mao, the Unknown Story”, admittedly an unsympathetic portrait, he was responsible for “70m deaths, more than any other 20th-century leader”. But why stop at the 20th century? . . .” Link@economist.com

El mundo sigue dando vueltas y el pájaro come pescados volvió. A pesar de los malévolos la vida sigue. La urgencia de vivir es el comienzo del ciclo eterno que nunca morirá y seguirá su incansable búsqueda por alcanzar lo sublime y lo divino. Algún día según dicen los sabios, todos los animales veremos en la muerte a una señal en la cual nuestro ser superior nos dictará el camino hacia el verdadero final. Un final que siempre estuvo ahí. Pero lo que realmente importa es que el pájaro come pescados volvió. Yo lo ví.

Con casi veinticinco años con el mismo “line-up” que incluye a Kaye Woodward, la “guitar Anti-Hero” por excelencia, esta banda neozelandesa no podía quedar fuera del porpoiseblog. Sería una omisión tremenda de nuestra parte no incluir a la agrupación que ayudó a definir el sonido “jingle-jangle” moderno, además de servir como ejemplo e inspiración a innumerables grupos que se rehusan a comprometer su visión artística por fama o algo tan vulgar como el dinero.

The Bats – Sighting the Sound
Silverbeet – 1993
Flying Nun Records
Cómprenlo@amazon.com

“Suddenly his face puckered up, his eyes disappeared, his breathing was arrested . . . he took the opera glass from his eyes, bent over and . . . “Aptchee!!” he sneezed as you perceive. It is not reprehensible for anyone to sneeze anywhere. Peasants sneeze and so do police superintendents, and sometimes even privy councillors. All men sneeze. Tchervyakov was not in the least confused, he wiped his face with his handkerchief, and like a polite man, looked round to see whether he had disturbed any one by his sneezing. But then he was overcome with confusion. He saw that an old gentleman sitting in front of him in the first row of the stalls was carefully wiping his bald head and his neck with his glove and muttering something to himself. In the old gentleman, Tchervyakov recognised Brizzhalov, a civilian general serving in the Department of Transport.” 201 Chekhov Stories@ibiblio.org

“The night flight to Paris leaves J.F.K. at 7 P.M. and arrives at de Gaulle the next day at about 8:45 A.M. French time. Between takeoff and landing, there’s a brief parody of an evening: dinner is served, the trays are cleared, and four hours later it’s time for breakfast. The idea is to trick the body into believing it has passed a night like any other—that your unsatisfying little nap was actually sleep and now you are rested and deserving of an omelette. Hoping to make the lie more convincing, many passengers prepare for bed. I’ll watch them line up outside the bathroom, some holding toothbrushes, some dressed in slippers or loose-fitting pajama-type outfits. . .”
David Sedaris@The New Yorker

“The reacTable is a round translucent table, used in a darkened room, and appears as a backlit display. By placing blocks called tangibles on the table, and interfacing with the visual display via the tangibles or fingertips, a virtual modular synthesizer is operated, creating music or sound effects.”
reacTable Project Website
reacTable Demo@YouTube

“As the last afternoon of a seven-day search for the elusive vaquita — the world’s smallest and most critically endangered porpoise — drew to a close, it appeared that the expedition team would have to be satisfied with the sonic data it had collected and the occasional glimpse of a dorsal fin that had teased it throughout the week. Then, a small head breached the surface and WWF communications officer Gustavo Ybarra captured the first-ever photograph of the face of a living vaquita.”

Marsouin du Golfe de Californie@Vaquita Marina.org
The Sea Of Cortez
Porpoise Lesson Plans (pdf) Illustrated by Uko Gorter
Ayuden@WWF Passport

“For once in their career the Twins came up with a melody that’s easy to remember, a relatively simple song structure and a chorus you might even want to sing along to. So it is no surprise this track was also released as a CD-single – the first of their career after many, many EP’s – to promote their Heaven Or Las Vegas album.”(An Appreciaton of Cocteau Twins)

Cocteau Twins – Iceblink Luck
Heaven or Las Vegas
4AD – 1990
Cómprenlo@amazon.com

“In the vacuum of space, with neither gravity nor air friction to deal with, a craft can be affected by even the smallest force. That’s exactly what solar pressure does: it provides a vanishingly small—yet utterly relentless—force against the enormous mirrorlike sails designed to harness this energy just as canvas sails do on oceangoing ships.”

“Eventually, over sufficient time and distance, solar pressure can drive a spacecraft to enormous speeds—fast enough to cross the inconceivably vast and frigid gulfs between stars.”

“That’s right: solar sailing is the only practical technology capable of interstellar flight. With it, the closest stars to our own become targets for our vessels.”

Cosmos 1@Wikipedia
Let’s get Cosmos 2 into Space!

“Life knows us not and we do not know life – we don’t even know our own thoughts. Half the words we use have no meaning whatever and of the other half each man understands each word after the fashion of his own folly and conceit. Faith is a myth, and beliefs shift like mists on the shore; thoughts vanish; words, once pronounced, die; and the memory of yesterday is as shadowy as the hope of tomorrow.”
The Moral Agent@The Guardian