Important Things I Learned Today

In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream (But That's Only Because the Earth Itself Is Screaming Louder than You Could Possibly Ever Scream, Like That One Baby in the Grocery Store, OMG, It's Burning My Ears).

Montgomery, Alabama's, minor league baseball team is called the Montgomery Biscuits.

The Long Winters are going to appear on that Huey Lewis comp Are You Still with Me?! when/if it ever sees the light of day. (In the meantime, check out Throw Me the Statue's superb take on "If This Is It.") This whole ball of wax makes me happy x one million.

LCD Hexagonsystem

Space boner alert! Have you guys heard about this hexagon thing the Cassini-Huygens mission has photographed on Saturn's North Pole? Peep dis (snip):

"This is a very strange feature, lying in a precise geometric fashion with six nearly equally straight sides," said Kevin Baines, atmospheric expert and member of Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIMS) team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "We've never seen anything like this on any other planet. Indeed, Saturn's thick atmosphere where circularly-shaped waves and convective cells dominate is perhaps the last place you'd expect to see such a six-sided geometric figure, yet there it is."

The hexagon is similar to Earth's polar vortex, which has winds blowing in a circular pattern around the polar region....

A system of clouds lies within the hexagon. The clouds appear to be whipping around the hexagon like cars on a racetrack.

"We've never seen anything like this on any other planet." "Whipping around the hexagon like cars on a racetrack." Fucking rad, right?! Be sure to click through to the article itself to see the ridiculously cool pictures.

My music-listening habits can get so hermetic, what with the headphones and all, that sometimes it prohibits me from enjoying what I'm hearing. I'd been kind of knee-jerk with the meh about the new LCD Soundsystem, just because it's been so hyped lately (a full 90 on Metacritic; thx for the link, Richard). But then I heard "Get Innocuous!" out at the bar last night, and it was like someone had opened all the windows and doors and let a rush of cool spring night air in. It was just what my appreciation of the song needed. Revisiting it this morning, even with my headphones on the train, just confirmed the awesomeness. When those sharp, hard strings come in sounding like a traffic jam at the end and then get pulled way up in the mix to fully reveal themselves as a string section...wow. That's some of the most exciting stuff I've heard recently.

Chicagoans, have you been out to see the Bound Stems yet? I caught them opening for the Long Winters last weekend (OMG, another fucking mind-blower of a show), and they totally come off, in the best way possible, like Chicago's answer to the New Pornographers. They seem like a bunch of genuinely nice people having fun making music together, with an adorable, hooky tunefulness that's married to their own version of the stereotypical Chicago post-rock aesthetic. I'm just starting to spend some time with Appreciation Night, and I dig it so far. (Be sure to also check out the interview and free songs from their Daytrotter session last fall.)

Or Is It, "These Other Cats Is Just Pluto"?

I've been obsessed for a little while now with the Kut Masta Kurt remix of Diverse and Mos Def's "Wylin Out" available on the free, downloadable Chocolate Swim EP here. I love, love, love that line in the chorus that goes, "I'm Diverse / these other cats is just Whole Foods." I feel like it's the perfect way to kind of affectionately poke fun at the Adult Swim demographic of now-responsible early-thirtysomethings who own condos and hold down steady, interesting jobs and are politically liberal and like to buy organic food whenever possible but still jones for some funny, subversive cartoons at night. And, that would all be true except for the fact that, you guessed it, they're not actually rapping about Whole Foods. The line, rather, is "these other cats is just hopefuls." I only just realized this a few days ago and was so disappointed, and a little bit embarrassed, when it finally clicked, but, holy shit, what a fucking funny way to mishear the line, huh? Seriously, John Darnielle, will you just HAVE MY BABIES ALREADY??? This week on Salon he discusses (brilliantly, strangely, hilariously) television and boxing and how bright Sebastian Bach would be "if he could just stay focused." (OMG, does this betray a Gilmore Girls habit as well?) I couldn't even bring myself to read the rest of the contributions because I knew I'd just be disappointed that he didn't write them. There's also, of course, the new album, which, yes, is very, very sad, but, at first blush, nowhere near as emotionally impenetrable as all the "I'm still processing [it]" comments might lead one to believe. It's beautiful and cold and feels kind of perfectly breathless, like all the air has been crushed out of it, with a few trinkets and other bits of discarded, gilded dross left rattling around inside. I feared that his falsetto work would tip the whole boat into dirge overload, but it doesn't at all. I can't remember which blog I found it on originally, but here's a link to the music video for "Woke Up New," directed by Rian Johnson, the guy who did Brick. (Seriously, if his spine-tinglingly perfect choice to run "Sister Ray" over the closing credits is any indication, this guy knows good music.) Gorilla vs. Bear points us in the direction of the Cold War Kids' free Daytrotter session MP3s and the wonderfully juicy corresponding interview. The band sounds just as exhausted as the write-up claims they were after the drive back out to Iowa, but that battle fatigue brings something really beautiful out of "Hospital Beds" that I'd never quite heard in the song before. I don't know if I'm posting this for anyone other than myself at this point, but, if you have any interest in these cats at all, don't miss these links. Good Hodgkins links to a great interview with Chicago oddball Devin Davis. I laughed out loud at his perfect encapsulation of what it means for him to have reached a certain level of success as an indie musician: "People now introduce me to friends as 'Devin Davis' instead of 'Devin' which is kind of funny, but flattering." The best thing, in my mind, about the whole Pluto demotion thing is that people are talking about and thinking about space, about our solar system. As funny as I find stuff like Kottke's mnemonic contest and Colbert talking planetary smack, I'm firmly in support of the scientists trying to figure out just what the fuck a planet is. It seems to me the height of respectable, forward-thinking science that they aren't afraid to make these intense pronouncements that are forcing us to redefine what we had previously held as "true" about our little corner of the cosmos. I'm not discounting the fact that this decision was probably fraught with dissention and contention and debate and that the new "dwarf planet" classification might not satisfy all the voters from the International Astronomical Union, but still, if we can no longer expect our politicians to have the courage to say, "you know what, upon further evidence, I need to reconsider my position," we need to support and encourage astronomers, biologists, mathematicians, and the like when they're doing their damnedest to help us understand the amazing, confounding, continually unfolding nuances of our known universe.

One, Two. One, Two, Three, Four!

OMG, boner alert: Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman are doing a movie together. And not just any movie, but a bona-fee-day high-class period pitcha for the Beeb, based on CRP go-to foreword-writer Philippa Gregory's novel The Other Boleyn Girl. Natalie will play Anne, and Scarlett will play her sister Mary. Get yr kleenex boxes ready! (I was talking to the historical romance fans who, y'know, get emotional about all the torrid romance and tragedy and such. Ahem.)

Fred Armisen, thank you for taking to task the annoying douchebags who rock out to their music, oblivious to their surroundings, on the bus or train or in other public spaces. "I can't deal with other people making their musical tastes known to everybody else. I don't like people bobbing their heads or getting into stuff at all. It should be private....I don't even tap my feet. I hate that." This has long been a pet peeve of mine in the city. I couldn't agree more.

Can anyone confirm for me that Danger Mouse really is only 28, as this New York Times Magazine profile claims? I can't find a birth year listed on either allmusic or Wikipedia. I guess it really doesn't matter; I just find the realization that he's, like, my age kind of remarkable. Also, I can't stand Chuck Klosterman. That line "There were no throngs of pretty girls, although there were several girls dressed as if they thought they were pretty" is just beyond offensive.

S/FJ's "oily pec-off" turn-of-phrase made me laugh out loud here.

Space + ancient Egypt = GeekOverload.com. Loves it.

"Slap Your Knee and Say Ouch" is sososo funny. Bonus points, too, for some Ben Kweller love. (Stereogum has a new Kwellah MP3, "Penny on the Train Track," from his forthcoming self-titled disk.)

I'm obsessed this week with that new Girl Talk album Night Ripper. Listening to it feels like compressing a cross-country road trip down into 42 frenzied minutes, that feeling of speeding, exhausted but wired on caffeine, down unfamiliar highways, cramped but kind of giddy, switching radio stations as you drift in and out of reception, wondering if driving over the next state line is going to bring oldies, hip-hop, or the best indie rock programming you never would have expected to find just outside Tulsa city limits. Your favorite tracks will largely be determined by how many of the samples you recognize and how much you're amused by their juxtaposition; right now I'm all about "Minute by Minute," which, as the Pitchfork reviewer mentions, samples Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945," but also sneaks Sophie B. Hawkins and Steely Dan in there, among many (many, many) others.

Can I Give Props to Ray Charles, Too? Just for Snicks?

You know what they always say: a journey of three billion miles begins with a single launch. We're going to Pluto today, kittens! Isn't that fantastic?

Blockbuster Books of the Bible, including "Deuteronomy, Where's My Car?", "Daniel Darko," "2nd Chronicles of Riddick," and "Zephaniah and Hutch."

Speaking of The Chronicles of Riddick, here are the Top Thirty Facts About Vin Diesel, including "Crop circles are Vin's way of telling the world that sometimes corn needs to lie the fuck down" (thanks, Nora Rocket).

I know I linked to the Who's the Boss website about a million years ago, but the drawing in the "featured commentary" section here just makes me unspeakably happy.

The Golden Globes, in summary:

• We like Felicity Huffman, Michelle Williams, and Cynthia Nixon.


• Geena Davis redeemed her dress by lying in her speech about her presidential role's impact on young girls.


• A History of Violence is by far the best of the movies it was nominated against in the Best Motion Picture–Drama category (and probably still the best even if you throw the Musical or Comedies in there, too), but I'm not surprised Brokeback Mountain won.


• The Desperate Housewives displayed an unacceptable amount of giggling. I'm just sayin', none of the actors giggled when Lost won.


• The only thing going through the audience's heads while John Williams was walking to the stage to accept his Best Original Score award was "DUN. DUN. DUN. DUN DA-DUN. DUN DA-DUN!" I hereby nominate him to be put out to pasture already!


• Do you think Mel Brooks was sad about being at the ceremony alone this year?


• Props to Zach Braff for drinking a fucking bottle of Bud in the midst of all that Moet.

I'm only scratching the surface here. For those of you who crave the snark, Defamer has some of the best Globes wrap-up on the blogs (with pictures!).

The Little Boy in Me? I Call Him Doug.

Shit like this totally brings out the little boy in me. I'm absolutely delighted by the food chain gross-out drama right now. Python vs. Gator Death Match '05!!!!!!! (Thanks, JP.)

On much the same note, I've been on a real science kick these days, especially after proofreading our forthcoming kids activity book Exploring the Solar System, so I also quite enjoyed Michael Brown's geeky/goofy insouciance here regarding the discovery that our unofficial tenth planet, 2003UB313 or "Xena," has its own moon.