RSS Feeds Are Boring
Now that I’ve started using an RSS reader, life is dull. With the touch of a button, I can update the 15 or so blogs that I read without wasting time or getting sidetracked. It takes just minutes a day! Thanks RSS reader!
Oh wait, now I’m bored. Maybe I should try to solve some kind of problem? What sort of things need to be done?
- Interviewing for a new job will start soon. Focus on sharpening my skills so I can stride into the interview with confidence, spring in step.
- DJing on Friday at fashion show. Prepare in advance by weighing the musical direction I want to go, look for new tracks.
- An outbreak of sleazy male bloggers reflect a worldview that combines egotism and victim mentality to produce dishonesty, destructive behavior and sexual predation. Think about this problem, reference Attack of the Listless Lads.
- Beatport has no RSS feeds for new releases. That should be fixed.
Podcast: We Interrupt This Electro Quake
Podcast number two is vastly improved. I’ve decided to name them by combining words from the names of the tracks. Or, as we say in the DJ world, “remixing“, which is a brand new post-structuralist form of music or something. I guess Wired never caught on to the fact that art of any kind implies recombination. Other than certain kinds of outsider art, all artists draw from influences. I guess that kind of pokes a hole in the ridiculous mythological figure of the artist as a hero, stealing fire from the gods and so on.
This mix is only 25 minutes, partly because I nearly ran over my alloted bandwidth last time. Hopefully if I make them shorter I can post more than one a month.
Tracklist
- Zombie (Aquachop Dub) – Acquaviva & Luetzenkirchen [BluFin]
- Start Getting Naked (Shawn Astrom Remix) – Dirty Rotten DJs [Level]
- Validity Reason – Hystero [Soma]
- Housequake 05 (Stu Hirst Remix) – Mike Monday [Level]
- Muckenschwarm – Oliver Koletzki [Cocoon]
- We Interrupt This Program (Interrupted Vocal Mix) – Coburn
Extrema Mixens
Bart Van Wissen is good, so good that I don’t even mind the first, funky half of this mix. Sadly, Extrema Records doesn’t archive their hosted mixes, so here’s the tracklisting:
- The Electric Press – Fish 2 Fry [20:20 Vision]
- Sharam Jey – Push your body (Lou Lou rmx) [Underwater]
- Zoo Brazil – Stars [Systematic]
- Argy – Love Dose [Pokerflat]
- The Dolphins – Warriors [Ocean Dark]
- Acquaviva – Zombie (Dub) [BluFin]
- DJ T – A Guy called Jack [Get Physical]
- Luke Dzierzek – Timeless [Silver Planet]
- Red Drop – Music 4 Me [Extrema]
- Luke Walker – Streak [Underwater]
- Joel Mull – Fantastish [Underwater]
Crazy northern Europeans with your funky robot fixation!
These Spambots are Getting Smart
You know the spambots have won when they make coherent critiques of your blog posts by referencing Marxist philosophers. It’s clear to me now that artificial intelligence has progressed to a point where even spambots are superior thinkers; the only thing left to do now is to lie down with a paper bag over our heads and wait for the end. I deleted the comment, since it linked to an online gambling site, which, by no small coincidence, is also overrun with pokerbots capable of besting the most skillful meat-computer.
My philosopher-spambot says:
“The total effect of the culture industry is one of anti-enlightenment, in which, as Horkheimer and I have noted, enlightenment, that is the progressive technical domination of nature, becomes mass deception and is turned into a means for fettering consciousness. It impedes the development of autonomous, independent individuals who judge and decide consciously for themselves.”
As it turns out, this is a quote from The Culture Industry Reconsidered, an essay by German philosopher Theodor Adorno which offers up a withering critique of modern consumer culture. For the latest installment of our continuing commentary series, Where Are We Going And Why Am I In This Handbasket?, we dive into the twisted mind of Theodor Adorno. To wit:
What parades as progress in the culture industry, as the incessantly new which it offers up, remains the disguise for an eternal sameness; everywhere the changes mask a skeleton which has changed just as little as the profit motive itself since the time it first gained its predominance over culture.
For Adorno, the culture industry standardizes and commodifies cultural products for economic purposes, to extract the maximum amount of profit from the population.
But any trace of spontaneity from the public in official broadcasting is controlled and absorbed by talent scouts, studio competitions and official programs of every kind selected by professionals. Talented performers belong to the industry long before it displays them; otherwise they would not be so eager to fit in… there is the agreement – or at least the determination – of all executive authorities not to produce or sanction anything that in any way differs from their own rules, their own ideas about consumers, or above all themselves.
The culture industry suppresses genuine spontaneous expression in favor of controlled formulas and cliches that guarantee profitability, and inherent in the formula is the desire for yet more formula. Profitable cultural products carry a hidden message that teaches us to consume what is most popular and profitable for the industry. Returning again to Maslow’s hierarchy, the needs at the bottom of the hierarchy are easily commodified and the most profitable. As you ascend the hierarchy, your needs become individualized and increasingly resistant to being packaged and sold as a product, so the culture industry strategically suppresses the natural impulses of individuals to fulfill those needs because allowing that to occur would drastically cut into their profits. Thus, the shallowness and superficiality of modern youth culture is through no fault of their own. They suffer daily as the culture they have been indoctrinated into since birth commits violence against their psyches, forcing them to wander endlessly in a maze of pop cultural sameness that only has the illusion of progress and ascension.
Despite the value of connection with other people and belongingness, in modern life, we are unified by our narrow consumptive choices. We feel a sense of community with people who like the same movies as us, who seem to have the same experience, yet the substrate of that experience, the things that we bond over tell us that we can never achieve anything higher. Pop culture tells us that we can never have (nor do we need) cognitive development, aesthetic development, self-actualization or transcendence, yet those are the very things that are needed most once the basic needs are met. It demands that we remain in the lower regions of need where we are vulnerable and easily exploited, and social bonds and connection to other people are the chains that keep us down. Don’t deviate, stay within the safety zones or you are threatened with the violence of alienation. That is true belittlement.
So long as there are individuals seeking to escape from bondage, I’ll espouse a philosophy of radical inclusiveness for those people trying to break free. I’m sympathetic to people who are imprisoned but don’t know it, but I must in all honesty express disapproval of their (admittedly unknowing) attempts to subjugate their fellow prisoners. Self-centeredness and narcissism preys upon an Individual’s natural inclination toward connectedness by demanding that no Individual define herself in unique, personal ways, which are ways that the Narcissist person cannot accept. The Narcissist cannot respect uniqueness, because he wants to be loved by everyone, and defining yourself in ways outside of popular culture means he cannot impress you. The consequences are severe, and the Narcissist attempts to negate the very existence of the Individual by mocking her uniqueness and subjecting her to public scorn, pushing her to the cold, lonely outskirts of society and rendering her invisible. An example has been made of her, and no other individuals dare tempt the wrath of the Narcissist.
But we even have sympathy for the Narcissist, for he is the victim of the same weapon that he now inflicts on others. Having been denied the satisfaction of progressing up the hierarchy of needs, he finds an empty solace in endlessly pursuing temporary highs within the lower strata.
Dear Sir/Madam
We have recently completed auditing your planet, and I must regretfully inform you that your young people between the ages of 14-28 are woefully shallow and self-absorbed when compared to Galactic standards. They seem to be chiefly concerned with brief acts of copulation and various preceding and anteceding rites and rituals. Their social networks are dedicated to sharing the inconsequential details of their lives in the hopes of acquiring meaingless but reassuring platitutes and ego-inflating sympathy in a narcissistic circle-jerk that produces nothing of enduring value.
As you may know, an egocentric orientation such as this is at least 4 Standard Galatic Levels below the expected potential of a planet with your level of techno-economic development. For your reference, please refer to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Earth’s youth societies are barely capable of achievement in the first four categories: physiological, safety, belongingness & love and esteem needs. The final four categories of cognitive, aesthetic, self-actualization and self-transcendence needs are practically non-existant.
A follow-up audit will take place in 90 days, and if it is determined that sufficient progress has not been made, the planet and all its deficient inhabitants will be smashed into a million tiny pieces.
Sincerely,
The Galactic Stupid Police
A Riddle
I am resting in the great Unborn, I am resting in intrinsic Spirit, I am resting in primordial Emptiness, I am resting in infinite Freedom. I cannot be seen, I have no qualities at all. I am not this, I am not that. I am not an object. I am neither light nor dark; neither here nor there; I have no color, no location, no space and no time; I am an utter Emptiness, another word for infinite Freedom, unbounded to infinity. I am the opening or clearing in which the entire manifest world arises right now, but I do not arise in it—it arises in me, in this vast Emptiness and Freedom that I am.
Things that are seen are pleasent or painful, happy or sad, joyous or fearful, healthy or sick—but the Seer of those things is neither happy nor sad, neither joyous nor fearful, neither healthy nor sick, but simply Free. As pure and simple Witness I am free of all objects, free of all subjects, free of all time and free of all space; free of bith and free of death, and free of all things in between. I am simply Free.
When I rest as the timeless Witness, the Great Search is undone. The Great Search is the enemy of the ever-present Spirit, a brutal lie in the face of a gentle infinity. The Great Search is the search for an ultimate experience, a fabulous vision, a paradise of pleasure, an unendingly good time, a powerful insight—a search for God, a search for Goddess, a search for Spirit—but Spirit is not an object. Spirit cannot be grasped or reached or sought or seen: it is the ever-present Seer. To search for the Seer is to miss the point. To search forever is to miss the point forever.
- K. Wilber, The Eye of the Spirit
Labels Roundup
- Boxer Recordings (Germany) – Awesome electro-type tracks, affiliated with Kompakt.
- Wagon Repair (Canada) – Konrad Black. Online distributor: Unknown.
- Palette Recordings (US) – Owned by John Tejada? iTunes distribution, which is great because its impossible to view all releases by a label. Its almost like someone at Apple sat down and said, “How can we make iTunes antagonize DJs even more?”
- en:vision recordings (UK) – techy breaks for variety. DJ Phully’s Daft Fader scores with cheesy Star Wars samples
- Four:Twenty Recordings has a new track up on Beatport: James Mowbray, D. Ramirez – The Day Hip Hop Died.
- Traum’s new one is Minilogue – Certain Things EP. Really great hypnotic groove. Its like a bohemian opium den, on the moon of some distant planet.
MoMu Lounge is Great
Picture of me doing the business at MoMu Lounge. A solid night, considering that it was a Thursday. I got a number of people telling me how awesome it was, which is better than the K-Bar crowd: “Do you have any Hip Hop?” Even more surprising is that I let fly with some fairly abstract stuff, with is usually rough going for the crowd who expect soulful jazzy house. I guess its a lounge or something. Fuck that, I’m playing the robot music! The crowd definitely went for it, though.
I’m told that DJ Samer of Pangea Recordings is moving to Sacramento, and is looking for venues. Pangea has hosted some fairly big names like Andy Moor and Alex Stealthy, and I generally concur with Samer’s musical choices, but its a bit weird that he’s coming to Sacramento, where the scene has virtually no appreciation for music that doesn’t facilitate their sexual ambitions.