Anyone who spends anytime at all reading about or discussing magic with those who actually work magic will hear that magic is meant to be practiced. That study and theories mean nothing without practice. This is generally why books about magic read more like how-to guides than scholarly essays. Obviously I’m not saying that those how-to guides aren’t carefully researched and developed after years of experience, what I am saying is that I want scholarly essays! And like an answer to my geeky prayers, Patrick Dunn wrote the book “Magic Power Language Symbol”.
This book is dense and rich like some sort of triple dark fudge cake. Not a single word is wasted. I made my way carefully and deliberately through the text and can honestly say that I will benefit greatly from reading it again, and probably again. Dunn packs in so many interesting thoughts and theories, along with copious research, that I challenge you to feel like you absorbed all the information in one reading! That said, the book is not a dry read. Dunn, in my opinion, is a gifted writer. He presents complex ideas in a conversational and easy to understand manner. The book is littered with amusing examples and footnotes.
What does the book cover? Just about anything you can think of that falls under the headings of magic, power, language, or symbol! Speaking in tongues, magical alphabets, mantras, the Qabalah, Enochian, glyphs and sigils, incantations, and more!
As far as I’m concerned, just about anyone would find this book a fascinating read. Regardless of what kind of magic you practice, this book is an essential.
Due to the recent Beijing Olympics, for better or worse, we’ve all been learning more about China. It was in this vein that the BBC show Newsnight presented a piece about a Chinese singer named Sa Dingding. Let’s not talk politics, she didn’t in her interview. China is a wonderful place for artists, end of interview. Maybe she truly believes that, maybe the government made no secret of the fact that they knew where her family lived, all I’m saying is that it is a little creepy to see that her album was produced by ShangHai To-Wing Culture Development Co. Ltd., and not, you know, by individuals.
Enough about all of that though, the point is, I heard about her on Newsnight and instantly fell in love with her music. Her album, “Alive” came out in 2007, but thanks to the Olympics and positive feedback in Europe, I recently got a hold of the CD, now available in the United States.
What’s it like? Well, for starters, no English. Mandarin, Sanskrit, even a self created language, but no, I do not understand a single word on this album. It doesn’t matter though, the music is so cinematic that just like when watching a television show in another language, you just kind of decide what you think is going on.
What is going on? A real East meets West kind of sound. Forget Ming Tsai! This is a real cultural blend. (A personal note to Ming Tsai: Please don’t take offense and come after me with one of your beautiful Kyocera ceramic knives!) Sa Dingding blends very traditional sounding folk songs with Westernized techno and rock sounds. On my favorite song, the title track “Alive”, I swear that some sort of harp or mandolin, totally jams out in a blues/soul kind of way. The album has simple, and beautiful, vocals cutting through a dense fabric of sounds.
There are Tings, which are a cheese puff-like treat that all the kids I know seem to love. There is Ting Ting, the poster girl for the card game “Shadowfist”. Despite those notable tings, today we are going to talk about the new album from The Ting Tings, that I recently purchased as part of my summer music buying madness.
Do you miss the ladies of 80’s new wave? Good news, their spirit is alive and well in The Tings Tings CD “We Started Nothing”. Their lead singer has a style that reminds me of The Waitresses (“I Know What Boys Like”). It’s not quite singing, but it’s not quite rapping, it’s like talking….with style. I’m so cool that I don’t even need to sing. If you’re looking for deep lyrical complexity, or levels of emotional resonance, skip this album. But, if you’re like me, and missed that slightly edgy pop/rock that only the way too hip ladies of the 80’s could generate, then you must buy this disc now!
Thanks to My Space TV you can check out their first single “Shut Up and Let Me Go”.
I approached this past weekend with the best of intentions. My husband and I were going to get up on Saturday, go out for some breakfast, hit Target to pick up a copy of Freakazoid Season One, do some grocery shopping, come home, clean, post Kip Givens’ awesome article to the website and then, only after all that was complete would we crack the shrink wrap on Freakazoid.
However, as the weekend drew nearer our excitement over Freakazoid kept building. Let’s put it this way, our apartment is still waiting to be cleaned. Once we got home from breakfast and running errands, we collapsed into balls on our sofas and started watching Freakazoid…and didn’t stop until we’d watched all of season one!
Freakazoid is a cartoon that aired in the mid-nineties. It was done by the same folks who did Animaniacs…another great weekend waster in our household. It follows the adventures of Dexter Douglas who due to a computer bug was sucked into the internet and was spit back out with the ability to “Freak Out!” and become the teenage superhero Freakazoid. The show is a haven of geek pop culture references, and hilarious cameos. I encourage all of you who love cartoons loaded with geeky insanity to go and pick up a copy of season one, or at least rent it, but once you rent, you will want to buy!
And for those of you clever readers who are asking, why didn’t you just clean the apartment on Sunday? Here’s why….
Jet Li verses Michelle Yeoh swordfight. ‘Nuff said.
If you’re like me, you tend to give a lot of thought to what kind of calendar you’re going to buy for the next year. That’s why I was so psyched when my friends over at Llewellyn sent me a copy of their Mystic Faerie Calendar for an advance sneak peek.
These days it seems like there are hundreds of fairy calendars…. that is probably because there are! I can easily say that this one stands out from the crowd. It features the fanciful artwork of Linda Ravenscroft and great quotes from literature about the fairy realm. For me though, what makes this fairy calendar so unique is that the artwork is pulled from the Mystic Faerie Tarot that Ravenscroft did for Llewellyn. So not only is there beautiful artwork, but there is an extra layer to it as you gaze upon an image from tarot.
The calendar releases in August. If you’re a fairy fan, this is the calendar for you.
Well, it’s time to get back on track with keeping you up to date on my summer music buying frenzy. This review is for an album that came out in June. I know, I know…but there has been a lot going on. Don’t worry though, things are getting back on track and soon you’ll be all caught up. So enjoy.
Trying to describe N.E.R.D. is essentially impossible. I know plenty of people do describe and define them. For instance the Wikipedia entry for them starts with, “N*E*R*D is an alternative rock band formed in 2001. Their music is best described as funk rock, with various other influences, including hip-hop, soul music, alternative rock, and blues rock.” It’s as good of an attempt as any.
N.E.R.D. are hip-hop with live bands. Rappers influenced by rock music. The best way I can describe it is that N.E.R.D. are in a bubble of hip hop. They push against it, stretching the bubble, but are careful not to burst it. They’re all over the map and I love them for it.
Their latest album is “Seeing Sounds”, which is a theme that plays as an undercurrent for the album. How do you see sounds? Try listening to this CD. It’s a glorious cacophony. A masterful collage. A Jackson Pollack painting pressed onto a disc. At some points it’s rap, like the tracks “Anti Matter” and “Spaz” (two of my favorites), other times it’s rock, bordering on pop, like the song “Happy”, and occasionally they meet up and mingle like on the first single “Everyone Nose”, which is rap running through a funky jazz jam.
Here’s the first video/single from the album “Everyone Nose”. Enjoy! (And yes, if you watch carefully you will see Lindsay Lohan. Lohan, in a music video, about girls using cocaine. Insert your own mean spirited joke here.)
Rejoice for season two of The Boondocks released on DVD this week! I’m consistently amazed that more of my friends don’t watch this show. I love it! Not only is it insanely funny and filled with honest, topical messages, but the art for the show is beautiful. It’s a show that appeals to all five senses, you know, sight, sound, humor, intelligence, and martial arts love. Okay, that last one might be made up.
I cannot comment on the overall quality of the second season. Why? Well, two episodes of the season (“The Hunger Strike” and “The Uncle Ruckus Reality Show”) went unaired in the United States. I haven’t had a chance to watch those yet but I suspect that if they weren’t aired that they are probably particularly funny. To quote Karen from the television show “Will & Grace”, “It’s funny because it’s true.”
What I have seen of the second season shows that The Boondocks continues to maintain its love affair with anime and martial arts, mocking BET and activist reverends, and the trials and tribulations of not just the African American community, but of the American community.
Creator Aaron McGruder takes a lot of flack for the content in The Boondocks. What can I say people, the truth hurts. Take it like a man and laugh at it for God’s sake! The stand out episode for the season in my opinion is “The S-Word”. Not only does it confront the changing usage of the n-word, but it takes on a remarkably Al Sharpton like reverend AND Ann Coulter. Here’s a little tease for you:
(if you are offended by the n-word DO NOT PLAY THIS CLIP!)
Do yourself a favor, buy The Boondocks season one and two DVD box sets. You won’t regret it.
I feel safe in saying that Cyndi Lauper is irrefutable evidence of the divine. Seriously, think about that voice. Never in all the eons of evolution has there ever been a voice like that, and once she’s gone I feel safe in saying that there never will be again. I mean there will be another Whitney Houston, known as Mariah Carey, and there will be another Mariah Carey, known as Christina Aguilera, and I’m sure there will be another Christina Aguilera. But whether it is a hiccup in Darwinism or the All Mighty Hand of God, nobody can sound like Lauper.
Her new album “Bring Ya to the Brink” is for starters, way better than its title. It’s a dance/techno album with pop tendencies. A lot of reviews mention the song “Rain on Me” and say something to the effect of, it’s the new “Time After Time”. Well every single reviewer that has used that line can bite me. What a huge disservice. I loved Lauper’s first album “She’s So Unusual” as much as the next person, song for song it’s one of the best ever, but creatively Lauper has surpassed that album, so to use her training wheels album as a comparison annoys me. Also, other than a vaguely 80s vibe, the song doesn’t sound like “Time After Time”, it sounds much better. It should, Lauper worked with Robyn’s producer for the track, and several others.
Lauper worked with notable pop and techno producers on this disc, and they definitely love her voice. No burying the vocals or running it through computers (although it’s done occasionally to good effect). They have Lauper’s signature voice cut through their instrumentals like a light saber through a Storm Trooper. A beautiful burning voice…that cauterizes.
The disc is littered with great techno inspired tracks. Some favorites: “Into the Nightlife”, “Echo”, “Raging Storm”, and “Grab a Hold”. I also do like the mid-tempo “Rain on Me”. But my favorite track is definitely “Rocking Chair”. This one was produced by Lauper and Basement Jaxx and it is fearless. An awesome techno tune, it features an almost tribal sounding Lauper, there’s a dash of urban sass, and some great use of “keyboard throat” as my friend Max would say (when you run the singer’s voice through a computer). Although, with Lauper’s insane voice, there very well could be no keyboard throat in action here, just raw Lauper bad assedness.
Unfortunately there isn’t an actual video for “Rocking Chair” but I found a fan montage thing that uses the song…good enough for me!
And here’s another kick ass tune from the album, this fan didn’t even have the decency to use photos, it’s just the song. Here’s “Into the Nightlife”.
As you all know, this has been the summer of my musical discontent…although more accurately it’s been the summer of my musical contentment and my wallet’s discontent. After my double barreled cd buying of the new Robyn and Madonna cds I was looking forward to a gap in my purchases. The next item on the list is Cyndi Lauper on 5/27 and to take a listen to the new Al Green that comes out that day to see if it to must be mine. All this said, you can imagine the word I said when browsing through my local discount store’s music section and I saw that the Duffy cd had released. (Hint, starts with f and rhymes with duck.) And with that, I snatched her cd “Rockferry” up and tossed it into the cart.
So ladies, you just realize that your life isn’t right. That the man you love isn’t capable of loving you back the way you wish he would. You need to reclaim your self-respect. To find yourself. You wake up just before the sun rises, pack your stuff into an old duffle bag, toss it into your beat up car and drive off into the rising sun on your journey of self-discovery. What cd do you listen to as you drive away? Duffy’s “Rockferry”.
Not to sound like every music critic on the planet, but it is the best way to describe it, Duffy’s cd sounds like a cleaner, less funky version of Amy Winehouse’s “Back in Black” album. It’s a fair assessment, but for me the two albums are a little like apples and oranges. Whereas Winehouse’s album reeks of self-destruction and self-loathing (God I love that album!) Duffy’s is filled with melancholy demands of self-respect and a desire for self-discovery. Maybe Rolling Stone did get it right when they said that Duffy is like Winehouse’s good girl sister.
The first single from Duffy’s album is “Mercy” which is up tempo tune that makes you want to shake your groove thang. It’s a great song. No other song on the album sounds like it. Not even a little. So do yourself a favor, don’t buy the album based on that one song! I don’t know if her label thought that Americans wouldn’t be interested in her bluesy, 60s songstress stylings or what, but they are definitely trying to pull the patented bait and switch on this one. In my opinion they’re doing the album a huge disservice. Duffy’s “Rockferry” album has a beating bleeding heart that draws you in, maybe it’s not an instant smash, but for me it is an instant classic.
The producers are back! Producers have always been a key piece in the music manufacturing puzzle, but in my opinion the producers haven’t shone like stars, like they do now, since disco’s heyday. Again, in my opinion, I don’t think that’s entirely a coincidence. During the time of disco, large portions of the population wanted an escape, and the high energy light content music of disco filled that desire. Although many of the disco performers were talented vocalists in their own right, it was the music those vocals were over that people cared about, and soon the producers became viewed as the artist. It even reached the point were producers started cutting out the middle man and released their work with them as the performers.
I think it’s safe to say that again, large portions of our population would like to forget about all the crap going on and just dance, dance, dance. And again, as notable and talented as the artists may be, it’s the producers who are gaining the notoriety. Despite working with such talented, or questionably talented, women as Gwen Stefani, Nelly Furtado, and Britney Spears, the credit for their recent successes seems to be falling squarely on such producers as The Neptunes, Timbaland, and Justin Timberlake. All of whom worked with Madonna on her new album “Hard Candy”.
This album received a lot of hype from industry folks saying that Madonna is trying to capture the urban market. Long time fans, such as myself, will remember that when Madonna first came on the scene, in a time when radio airplay came first and music videos came second, many people thought that Madonna was a Black artist. There was genuine shock when they saw the videos for “Borderline” and “Lucky Star” that featured a spunky, slightly pudgy, and absolutely Caucasian woman dancing about. Madonna isn’t trying to capture the urban market; she’s trying to recapture it.
“Hard Candy” wants you to dance so much that what you hear is the absolutely most danceable options available. No real risks were taken (since I wasn’t shocked, annoyed, or concerned about her collaborations with hip hop producers) and no real intimacy was provided (like in her equally danceable, but decidedly electronic, offerings of “Ray of Light” and “Music”). Take the R&B/hip hop of top 100 radio, mix in some disco, add a dash of techno, and you have “Hard Candy”. That said, “Hard Candy” commands you to dance, and makes you want to obey.
The first single “4 Minutes” is the real stand out on the album. Not only is it one of the tracks that really captures the R&B sound of the moment, but it has a marching band loop in it! Let me state for the record that what R&B needs is MORE marching band! It was the reason I liked JC Chasez’s song “Blowin’ Me Up (With Her Love)”, and I love it here now. The other song I really like on “Hard Candy” is “Heartbeat”. It really takes the old school Madonna and rubs a little funk on it. It’s got the thump, it’s got a catchy melody, and it’s got Pharell’s patented heys in it. The rest of the album is an exercise in mainstream danceability. Not that it’s bad per say, it’s just not inspiring. Occasionally it strays a little too far into disco territory like on the song “She’s Not Me”, which is okay with me, but it’s probably a touch too disco for today’s top 100 listeners.
Madonna wants you to dance, even if it means sacrificing herself on the altar of the producer. Honor her noble sacrifice and shake that thang!
Enjoy “4 Minutes” below. I have to say, that yes, I know she has trainers, and stylists, and all that jazz, but this 50 year old woman is holding her own with a spry young Justin Timberlake. When they do a little undressing of each other at the end, it’s not creepy, just kind of hot. Not many 50 year olds can pull that off!
This book is dense and rich like some sort of triple dark fudge cake. Not a single word is wasted. I made my way carefully and deliberately through the text and can honestly say that I will benefit greatly from reading it again, and probably again. Dunn packs in so many interesting thoughts and theories, along with copious research, that I challenge you to feel like you absorbed all the information in one reading! That said, the book is not a dry read. Dunn, in my opinion, is a gifted writer. He presents complex ideas in a conversational and easy to understand manner. The book is littered with amusing examples and footnotes.