Most of the time, the only good thing about a break-up is that it bonds you to certain songs in a passionate way. The last time I got broke up with, I turned to Josh Caress’s Letting Go of a Dream. As I drove across the state to go visit some sympathetic friends, I turned this sucker up all the way and let it wash over me. It’s a lush and symphonic album, featuring layers and layers of electronics, strings, beats, and acoustic instruments. When Caress gets going, he turns little ditties into towering melodies with such heartbreaking abandon that it’s almost impossible not to be moved. The forlorn tone of Caress’s voice is matched perfectly with the full sweep of his orchestration, and the two dip and turn in a way that creates one thought out of the many ideas.
Book Samples for All!
Huzzah!
Tell me, dear readers: whaddaya think about this new-fangled eBook craze?
Me? I’m all for the digital revolution, being a geek at heart, but I’ll admit as readily as the critics that the current technology is in dire need of improvement. Amazon’s Kindle - and Barnes & Noble’s upcoming Nook - are wonderful devices, certainly, and well-worth the cash for an avid book fiend, but the common user might find the price of entry a little steep for just a bunch of books.
They might be right. But the release of a Kindle application for PC (Mac version coming soon!) caught my eye for a bit of functionality everyone can enjoy, even those who prefer the leather-bound libraries of old. Interested? Click the link and read on. Seriously, do it - this is hugely useful for everyone.
Top Five Wednesday: Bands that have contributed the most to the downfall of radio
So, once upon a time, The Who were played on standard rock radio, right next to Aerosmith, Led Zep, and (maybe, if your station was cool enough) Hendrix. Now, obviously, is not that time, as we are treated to Nickelback, Kelly Clarkson, and Fall Out Boy. What happened to the radio?
I’ll tell you what happened: people started copying other people egregiously. Copying has been around forever (look up Donovan Bob Dylan in Google for evidence of that). But we’ve made it an art form (literally) in the modern world. Here’s the top five most influential, actually good bands that have inadvertently ruined radio today.
5. Metallica. Every metalhead that formed a band from 1989 to about 2000 wanted to make “…And Justice For All” all over again. Seeing as that’s impossible, because Metallica was really, really good back then, people just copied the “let’s make a really wicked awesome acoustic thing on this metal album” idea. All the crappy acoustic ballads by metal bands you hear now? “One” is directly responsible. And I am not happy that “Bother” by Stone Sour exists.
Really really thin pancakes
Today we’ll again be breaking out the eggs (pun intended) and making a french dish that is light, delicious, and really really thin.
Ok, you might be thinking to yourself: “Aaron, why are you teaching us how to make crepes? I’m pretty you need a stove for that, and I don’t have a stove in my dorm room.” The answer is that I don’t have a stove in my dorm room either. However I think that crepes are probably a good thing for everyone to know how to make, and you’re not always in your dorm room. Even I venture out every once in a while, and when I do I sometimes happen across a kitchen. So follow me after the break and find the secrets behind crepes.
Simple Means
Two years ago, on a balmy summer day, I wistfully meandered around The Coop bookstore in Cambridge, 
Massachusetts. I was in town visiting my good friend Tyler (whose blog I have to advocate as essential reading if you’re into the philosophy of religion and cultural criticism) and, as always, I was also looking for something to read on the looming plane ride back home. While thumbing through the Russian literature, I found myself taken–in a purely aesthetic way at this point thanks to the lovely New York Review Books design–by Andrey Platonov’s Soul, a novella coupled with a few additional short stories. I’d heard of him before, but Platonov always seems to get lost amid the immense greatness of other Russian writers like Dostoevsky, Nabokov, Tolstoy, etc.
CLICK to get it!
Fan Us! Is that even a term?