Rocktober Alphabet: E is for Elvis

Falling from Graceland

Elvis Presley arguably is rock n' roll to more people than any other artist. Cultural icon, velvet voiced rebel, hip-shaking corrupter of a generation, Elvis needs no introduction.

Or does he? For many, Elvis the icon eclipses Elvis the musician, the tousle haired boy that won his fame fairly, by completely rocking.

If you're one of those (like me once) who thinks of Elvis as a punchline, a blur in a mist of pink Caddilacs, silver sequins, Vegas impersonators, and black velvet paintings, pay attention.
If you only think of pompadours, Graceland, fried peanut butter and a grotesque death in a bathtub, listen up.
Please meet Elvis Presley for the first time. He can sing, and he has an attitude.
You should get to know him.

(image via Wikipedia.org)

Lunch Link: The Lovely, Odd World of Tom DesLongchamp

The good friend of a childhood buddy, Tom Deslongchamp's art, animation and bizzarely original creativity has kept me captivated since middle school.

So, dear readers of Threeow, I thought I'd share the proverbial love.

Tom's world of  kids, creatures, music, and talking hot dogs operates by a rigorous internal logic that is obviously there, somewhere, but terribly difficult to articulate.
His art by turns inspires, entertains and disturbs - often all at once. If you get it, you'll love it.

Thoroughly explore the archives -going back to '99- at his website.

Here's a live film "About Dogs":

About Dogs from Tom DesLongchamp on Vimeo.


And a personal favorite:

Earl Boone Is Alive from Tom DesLongchamp on Vimeo.

Also make sure to check out Tom's recent webcomic The Nose.

I hope you smile with me at a bright, strange mind.
Keep it up Tom.

Rocktober Alphabet: D is for The Doors

As Rocktober gets into full swing, The Doors are an obvious "D".

Though the band as a whole was remarkably talented, it's frontman Jim Morrison that took the group from the morass of forgettable mid-60's music and into a permanent place in rock history.


I remember my dad telling me about attending a Doors show in Hollywood when he was young.
The one impression he shared of that performance was the sense of Morrison as a consummate, terrifying, nigh perfect storyteller.

It's true, no matter how you hear him. When the man snarls, it's gentle, when he sings smooth you know he's going to stab you with something. Don't ever trust him. He's dangerous. 

Morrison - even 40 odd years later - remains hypnotic, difficult, frightening.
He alternatively sounds like a lover, a killer, a prophet, a poet, delivering his lyrics with a growl of authority, and the indefinable sense that no matter what he's singing, he's telling you a story.

Other than the inherent mesmerism of hearing a man whose sheer vocal and narrative energy can cut you through vinyl, I wonder sometimes how The Doors became so popular. They wear you out. The music is good, great even, but I'm always left emotionally exhausted.
Great art -and they made great art- is rarely a recipe for commercial success, but to date they've sold over 100 million albums.

That kind of following occasionally means something.
In this case, trust me, it does.

The Assassination of al-Awlaki and Citizen's Rights

Image via Wikipedia.com

Salon.com has an excellent piece commenting on the recent murder of Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen by US forces. A known leader of al-Qaeda (and a legitimately dangerous man), al-Awlaki was nonetheless a US citizen who had not been indicted for any crimes, and was far from any fighting on the ground.

Cory Doctorow over at Boing Boing comments:

"Whether or not al-Awlaki was a terrorist (something no court can determine now), this sets a new precedent: the US can assassinate its own citizens on presidential order without any due process or accountability."

This really is the "new reality" for American citizens, setting unequivocal precedent that a presidential order is all that is necessary for the execution of an American.

With the tremedously FUBAR implications of that new reality aside, al-Awlaki's death highlights a stark fact: it is the difficult choice of our time that we may need to be forced to decide between "better" security and the the very freedoms and protections that American citizens enjoy.

Are we willing to resist the justified fear of further terrorist attack and choose instead for a society that protects (or justly punishes) its people? Are we willing to be more vulnerable in exchange for doing the right things the right way?

Legality can be cumbersome sometimes. So can morality. But those difficult choices are the most important by far, because they are the ones that define us.

In al-Awlaki's case, it's too late. With one missile in the desert, we have made a martyr of a man who was by all evidences filled with hatred for the country he belonged to - a country that should have prosecuted him according to the laws that he broke.

Justice is not served by murder outside the law. We needed to do the right thing the right way, and we didn't.

Yes, it's too late for al-Awlaki.
Let's hope though, that it's not too late for you and me.

Coffee Break Commentary: Human powered transit... and water filter?

Today's Coffee Break Commentary is a human powered combination of transit and water filtration.

Wait... what???

The "Aquaduct" is a well thought out vehicle intended for third world use to decease the time and energy needed to carry and store water, and increase the drink-ability of that water.

Though I'm unconvinced that this is going to solve- or even perceptibly ease- the global water crisis, it's a great idea, that even has myriad first and second world applications. I will be interested to see how the units perform under real world stresses (especially rough roads under the weight of a lot of H2O).

I also hope that people keep getting great ideas like this to the ground - and into the drinking cups - of those who can most benefit from creative solutions to perennial problems.

Rocktober Alphabet: C is for Costello

Elvis Costello.

Where to begin?

One of the most incorrigibly prolific musicians of ... ever, Costello's produced (by my count) 22 studio and four live albums, numerous significant album collaborations with major artists, a library of single song collaborations, a classical ballet score for orchestra recorded with the London Philharmonic, two film scores, and more. The man is a musical polymath.

His compilations and "greatest hits" collections dwarf the entire catalogs of most rock musicians.

Costello's ability to write, to perform, to think both radically and traditionally is legendary, but most impressive is his pounding drive to make, to create, to always be developing his craft and pushing his boundaries.

He embodies the eclectic individuality that rock and roll is at its finest; the attitude of punk, the roots of blues and folk, the intricacy, harmony and evocation of the classical tradition. He's getting older, but he will never be "last year's model."

Listen today to "This Year's Model" on Grooveshark.

Pump it up.

Tossing Rocks in the Digital Cave

Up on the web was a lonely goatherd...

Google's partnership with the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum is making the Dead Sea Scrolls available to scholars and the public in a groundbreaking new way.

Realizing that the physical copies of these manuscripts from the Qumran community have a limited shelf life, the team is digitally archiving the collection. This is itself is important, and impressive. Their project is about much more than simple storage, though.

What makes this so exciting from the perspective of a biblical student and text critic is the fact that it the end result (according to the project's website)"gives users access to searchable, fast-loading, high-resolution images of the scrolls..."

In the era of Project Gutenberg, searchable pdf files, and advanced web crawling, this may not seem so impressive. Don't yawn though. This is a really, really big deal.

What this means is that texts that previously even the most respected scholars could never have dreamt of handling or studying for themselves are available - for free - to the general public. These texts are now fully searchable, and offer translation directly tied to the image being studied. This is a big deal.

Play around with the Great Isaiah Scroll for a sense of the project.

Part of my fascination with the scriptures has to do with the vulnerable, messy way that they have come to us. The story of the bible's development rambles and winds through millenia, through myriad ethnic and religious communities, across barriers of language, culture, race, and belief. We hold flaps of papyrus, bits of parchment and vellum as evidence of its antiquity, and use these to carefully compare to what we have today, to faithfully interpret the meaning of those texts.

This careful criticism holds profound implications for how we study, exegete, translate, and teach the scriptures. The Dead Sea Scrolls are a key part of that study.

Now that they are archived in the cultural and scholarly "commons" means that any student of the Bible's text and story can directly interact with these manuscripts for themselves, compare their conclusions with those of the wider community, and bring that story a bit closer to the narrative of their own lives.

It's my sincere hope that this project is a vision of "things to come" in ancient text criticism. Though the real beauty - and danger - lies in the interpretation of the manuscripts, having them within easy reach of anyone whose heart lies in the letters on that old paper is a really, really good idea.

And though they might not say it, the desert hermits of the Qumran community would probably be a bit jealous.


(Photo credit)

Rocktober Alphabet: B is for Bowie

Seminal pioneer of glam-rock, master of the concept album, genre and gender bending Thin White Duke. David Bowie's flair for grit-glitzy rock and roll prophecy is and was sheer genius.

He's experimental without being alienating, danceable without becoming a commercial sellout. He can write, he can play, he can think, he can sing. He's pure rock, individual, artistic, mysterious, and a rebel.

Check out "Five Years" from Ziggy Stardust for a quiet taste of the goodness.

Rocktober Alphabet: A is for Autry!

Autry! Rawks!

It's the 1st of Rocktober. As we kick off our Rocktoberfest, let's start close to home.

As in Portland.

As in my RAWKING COUSIN...

Growing up with Autry (she was like a second little sister through elementary school) was awesome, and I can't think of a better A to kick off Threeow's Rocktober Alphabet. She's local, talented, and tastefully over the top.

Rob Cullivan over at the Tribune summed it up well:

If Cyndi Lauper hadn’t acted so ditzy and Ani DiFranco joked a lot more, either woman might’ve been Autry, a Portland punk-meets-the Roaring ’20s singer-songwriter who’s so clearly out of her mind she just might be the sanest of us all. Not to mention she’s got a heckuva set of pipes and could hold her own against a lot of blues shouters if she so chose.

  
Here's an old version of one of her more out there tunes - "Bug". Enjoy. Find more at her myspace.

LET THE ROCKTOBERFESTIVITIES BEGIN.