Opposition leaders in #Bahrain tell me they are planning a huge march in next few days to retake Pearl Roundabout.Fri Feb 18 10:52:19 via web

Nicholas Kristof
NickKristof

Well, yes. The brutal crackdown on protests in Bahrain equals a newly inspired and deadly serious protest movement. (And the teargas is already flying in Manama today. The city is described as “under lockdown.”) I mean, honestly, what dictator, king or president-for-life does not understand this? It is Population Management 101. Even a Sims dictator would know this. In any event, the “Middle East” (and the Midwest! What’s up, Wisconsin!) is now essentially INFLAMED with protest movements, as anti-democracy spokesperson Glenn Beck would say. But for now….

Panicked crowds running thru hospital after police attack. Drs rushing to ER. Tear gas grenades outside, wafting in.Fri Feb 18 14:50:41 via Twitter for BlackBerry®

Nicholas Kristof
NickKristof

by Seth Colter Walls

The new Radiohead album, “The King of Limbs,” is available this morning to anyone who pre-ordered any sort of version earlier this week. We were told this would be a Saturday download, but now it’s a today thing. (Their press release says that the website was ready so the band just decided to push it live. Hmm!) There’s also a video for lead “single,” “Lotus Flower.” At any rate: don’t be waiting for an individualized link in your inbox, people! (That may still come Saturday?) If you go here, you’ll be asked to put in your site-registration info that you used to pre-order, and then: BAM! You can download the mp3s if you bought the mp3s or the wav files if you … for some reason wanted wav files. If you didn’t pre-order but would like to do so now, it looks like you’ll be able to access that same download page more or less instantaneously after you get your confirmation email.

Time to decide: How insane are we going to be about Radiohead (a band that means many different things to many different people) and this new album today, the last day of the Internet’s workweek?

Resolved:

1. Let’s not be upset with people posting insta-reactions (sez a guy who will ultimately offer some). We can’t stop it anyway; it’s natural — and moreover, it seems to be what Radiohead kinda wants. Here we are, many people listening to something largely at the same time — the commentary playing field leveled among critics and also music connoisseurs who have discovered other ways to make money and live in the world. (Good for y’all, seriously!) That’s a fine thing. Let’s enjoy it, even if some of us happen to hate the album.

2. Let’s not give any of these insta-reactions (including our own) disproportionate weight. It’s of course possible to have immediate reactions to art that remain true for you over the decades-long uber-haul. But usually, our assessments go up and down over time as we, you know, discover all the merits and demerits to be found in a piece of art. Maura Johnston wrote the “insta-reaction” le sigh, years ago, when “In Rainbows” dropped. And Vice already posted their preemptive “first review” of “The King of Limbs” the other day. Touche! And yet, and yet….

3. Quick reaction discussions needn’t, by nature, be stupid — or otherwise naively over-enthusiastic / overly jaundiced. We can own up to the fact that we’ll need to listen to this some more, figure out what the hell Yorke is mumbling via message board debates, while still asking: What are we hearing here, on first go ‘round?

THE ALBUM

This album is 8 songs long and clocks in at 37 minutes and 29 seconds long in my iTunes playlist. That’s going to anger some of the people who paid $48 for the double 10″ vinyl version that will be sent to them months from now. (They will hopefully have fun with the 625 pieces of small artwork that come in the vinyl edition?) Some people will assuredly think $9 for 8 songs totaling under 40 minutes in length a bit much, as well. But most of y’all who like Radiohead probably got “a deal” on the “pay-what-you-wish” pricing of “In
Rainbows” — so try to be reasonable about your outrage level here. Me, I’ve paid for subscriptions to Prince websites, so my tolerance threshold for expectations-not-met is pretty high.

Anyway: “Bloom” has some cool rhythmic misdirection going on. There’s the piano loop and opening boop-bleating that gets overrun at the 15-second mark by that strict percussion that you can almost-but-not-quite swing to. (In my head I’m able to count it in both 4/4 and triple meter “oom-pah-pah / oom-pah-pah.” Fun!) There’s not a ton of what you’d call “development” after the second vocal line comes in at 2:17 — in fact the first four songs all sort of seem content with throwing us one big compositional variation around the midway point, before looping back to do the beginning part again. The manic strut of “Morning Mr Magpie” settles down for just a bit in minute two, allows for a brief “oooh-oooh-oooh” Yorke thing for a minute, and then gets back to stepping. “Feral” introduces its bass line about halfway through during a lull, and then re-introduces the main business.

Radiohead has threatened to stop making albums and just release EPs, which is what made this album’s announcement something of a surprise. But maybe it’s an album in name only? Here it feels like they’ve grouped two four-song EPs and sold it as an album. “Lotus Flower” kicks off what I assume is Side B (on the single LP version) with what amounts to the album’s most proper “pop” song. It also prepares us for what happens on the Side B EP, which is: singing some more straightforward melodies. Here’s what I think some of the lyrics are:

There’s an empty space inside my heart ….
there’s a waste in you / I’ll set you free….
slowly we offer / cuz mfdadsfaadaaaeyyyy /
Just to see what happens / Just to see what is /
Just to feel my face balloon in hand.

Oh, and the “darkness is beneath” — so some pretty standard Radiohead-isms there. But evocative nonetheless. And look at Yorke’s dancing in the video! They actually give the choreographer credit! It’s some silent-film mugging mixed with post-MJ posture and Yorke being Yorke. Best Radiohead video in a while, I’d say.

“Codex” and “Give Up the Ghost” see Yorke delivering more instantly-repeatable/memorable vocal lines than the keeping-our-secrets-to-ourselves, mercurial creations on Side A’s EP. This feels like stuff that’s slightly more familiar sonic territory — think “Videotape” off “In Rainbows” (though “Give Up the Ghost” relies on acoustic guitar instead of piano, which I think is neat).

“Separator” brings the “Yorke singing more discernible melodies” EP to a close with an uptempo beat, no less. But it’s still pretty calm stuff. There are some really gorgeous filigree notes from Greenwood’s guitar in the last minutes, while Yorke softly instructs someone to “wake me up.” Nothing really rocks or knocks very hard on this record. Plenty of nice touches — though perhaps it’s too early to say whether they’ll sustain the many repeated listens that Radiohead fans demand of new Radiohead albums. People are going to compare the first four songs to “Amnesiac,” because they’re not immediately ingratiating on a songcraft level, but I think that’s slightly wrong. There’s a more organic and less programmed quality even to the mysterious stuff on “The King of Limbs” that seems to shoot straight out of the “In Rainbows” sound, developmentally.

But don’t trust me too much about any of that. It’s a first reaction.

Seth Colter Walls has a day job and a Tumblr both!

Previously: Zombie Cathy, Episode One

MT @DVNJr: How Mubarak Found the Internet’s Off Switch. Great stuff from Glanz & Markoff: http://t.co/gG7GImt // @NYTimes #longreadsWed Feb 16 13:32:51 via Twitter for Mac

Longreads
longreads

When we started up the Awl twitter feed oh lo those many quarters ago, I simultaneously had one good friend tell me she wouldn’t follow it if it had all our headlines, and another good friend tell me the exact opposite. Maddening! But still I agree that business-type Twitters shouldn’t spew every 18 seconds. That is why our pals at Longreads are great, because they do not overwhelm but they do regularly inform! Longreads, in case you don’t know, is the driving force behind a community of people who enjoy reading longer (for reals), run by a fellow named Mark Armstrong. If your idea of a good time is reading, you are in luck! (You are also a geek.) Previously.

by Mark Bibbins, Editor

I, Frankenstein,

Went to the cranberry festival.
My panoramic vision stilted
By medication, I still managed
To enjoy the cranberries floating
On the water.
I went from booth to booth,
Bought a candy apple and a scrunchy
For my hair.
Complete within myself, living
From day to day,
I thank the Almighty for second chances.
Now, to be truthful,
The cranberries were in a movie
I saw because I was too late
For the tour.
But even the movie was enough,
On a sunny day in South Jersey,
Where I cut through paths
And openings, so far away that
I can’t hear you, so far away
I can’t hear you.

Poem for Joshua

The engraver beetle waits in its iron cage.
You walk, you sleep, you eat. You do a lot
Of other things, too, as the netherworld
Is propped up on stilts above you. Orange
Daylight vanishes without a trace. It’s more
Than you thought it would be, here, in the
Hooded mesmerization of our sunny mornings.
If there is a well, then go to it. If there is not,
Then I’m sorry for what I did not say. Life
Is a string of kindnesses with some other
Beads attached. Pick one of the big ones,
Hold it, polish it like you would a favorite
Bug. The last thing anyone wants is to make
You responsible for the joy that comes on us
Like a sudden plague of fevers in between
The afternoons of fires and the lightening sky.

Blues Blown

Ambling along the gay perimeter,
A sedative makes me want to cry
About tomorrow. It comes time
For us to feel like we are beautiful,

And so we keep walking, pretending
Our direction is clear. The tongues
Of alligators lick us clean, and we
Concede that we are growing —

The parts that hinge in the light.
I am a stem without leaves, and I go,
Picking blueberries, the rhythm
Of all biological pleasures stilled.

How can I thank a horrible dream
When a newspaper can’t even absorb water?
For now I bask in the fictive spray
Of what spurts out of a needle.

Together, we could have gotten
Through this. Together, we will
Not get through this, as the landing strips
Are all upended, the spirits filled with glass.

Noelle Kocot is the author of five books of poetry, including Poem for the End of Time and Other Poems (Wave Books, 2006), Sunny Wednesday (Wave, 2009) and The Bigger World, forthcoming this April from Wave. She is also the author of a discography, Damon’s Room (Wave, 2010). She has won numerous awards for her work, including those from The Academy of American Poets, The American Poetry Review, The Fund for Poetry and The National Endowment for the Arts. Born and raised in Brooklyn, she now lives in New Jersey.

How Silvio Berlusconi sees Europe. [Note: Do not click through if you are offended by the word “pussy.”]

Commissioners in Campbell County, KY, have voted to reverse a ban on smoking in bars and restaurants. While some members of the public were in favor of the ban,

the majority in the room — some of them offering a standing ovation — won the battle. Many said they didn’t believe studies that showed the harms of secondhand smoke, noting some of them are sponsored by foundations that oppose smoking. Some criticized doctors and the medical community for taking a position on the issue. Ban critic Charlie Coleman, a county resident for more than 60 years, drew raucous applause when he compared anti-smoking efforts to tactics used by dictators such as Hitler. Other opponents couched the debate as one between hard-working, blue-collar people and an elitist medical community that seeks to remove liberties of the common workers.

Now, speaking as someone who has been smoking for twenty-five years, I have to say, it is painful to see this kind of anti-intellectualism used in defense of one of my favorite hobbies. Smoking kills. This is not a deniable fact. I guess there are still arguments about the dangers of second hand smoke, but mostly in the sense that there are still arguments about the existence of climate change. Filling the air with foul smelling chemicals, no matter how pleasant they are to their inhaler, is not just rude, it shows an utter disregard for the people around you. But here is the most important point: The best thing that ever happened to New York was its bar and restaurant smoking ban. I cannot tell you how many unbearable conversations I have been able to cut short by having to go outside for a smoke. I don’t think the people of Campbell County quite understand what they’re giving up here. And if that makes me Hitler, I’m Hitler. Now I’m gonna run out for a smoke.

Photo by Craig Cloutier.

If we ever make it to deep space, it will be because of the bears. Is there anything these remarkable animals can’t do?

The great Wu-Tang Clan rapper Raekwon releases his next solo album next month. Shaolin Vs. Wu-Tang, it’s called, the follow-up to 2009’s terrific Only Built 4 Cuban Linx 2. Some of the new music sounds good. The latest song to leak, “Rock n’ Roll,” which features Rae’s frequent collaborator Ghostface Killah, the singer Kobe, and Jim Jones of the Diplomats, sounds less so, to my curmudgeonly autotune-averse ears. But it’s interesting to look at which rock n’ rollers get namechecked in the lyrics. Not necessarily ones you might expect. For instance, Raekwon’s first shout goes out to Willie Nelson.

And then Bob Dylan.

Kobe, on the hook, cites Bon Jovi. Specifically, the song “Livin’ On a Prayer.”

And Mick Jagger. Which, God, wasn’t he great at the Grammys on Sunday?

Ghostface references Pink Floyd.

And Ozzy Osbourne.

Jim Jones proves himself to be the rock n’ rollest of the crew (which you would be expect, given his fashion sense.) He rattles off the names of a full seven super-famous rock bands in his verse. In order:

And Sheila E.!

“A massive solar flare could make for a beautiful night for people in the northern United States — provided it doesn’t knock the lights out. The blast of charged particles unleashed from the sun earlier this week has been peppering the Earth over the last few days, but it’s biggest punch is expected to hit the Earth’s atmosphere on Thursday.”

It has been a pleasure blogging for all of you. I’m going to go investigate what this “outside” people keep telling me about really is. (BTW, click here to see that image as an awesome gif.)