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