anyone up for these shows?

05/30 – Toronto – M83 + Berg Sans Nipple
07/06 – Toronto – Calexico
07/08 – Toronto – Beth Orton
07/15 – Buffalo – Boris

we all get down sometimes. phoenix’s “if i ever feel better.”

it seems at least several of us have been struggling through a slight malaise during a season when we should be feeling renewed with the energy and vigor of early summer. if, like me, you’ve been in the doldrums, hopefully this will give you a brief glimpse of trade winds to come. the carpenters version of klaatu’s “calling occupants of interplanetary craft.”

original klaatu version here.

the turtle costumes are fucking horrifying, and look how disgusting their legs are.

I’ve been getting moderately into the band Lemon Jelly recently. I remember vaguely reviewing their first album when I was at the radio station, but I don’t remember it making a big impression on me. I think the problem was that at that time I just wasn’t ready for something like this. Still too ass-deep in ambient and darkwave shit to understand the total shimmery, sun-bleached bliss of music like this. Very seasonally appropriate in any case. Ross and I have had several discussions on the appropriateness or inappropriateness of reviewing an album or even discussing music in general, trying to describe music that most have probably not heard before. I don’t know that I’m ready to concede total defeat just yet, but rather than waste a lot of words I’ll post a youtube of a song from each of their three proper albums. Briefly, then, the first two feel to me like a giant mash-up of I Am Robot and Proud and Greg Davis, mixed with The Orb’s somewhat dated choice of samples. The last one is pure Daft Punk / Stardust / Avalanches brilliance.

youtubes below the cut.

(more…)

Unfortunately it now seems to have mostly faded from the Rochester sky, but early this morning on my way to work I managed to snap a picture of a nice 22-degree halo. Very similar to the rainbow effect, the light from the sun passes through ice crystals in the atmosphere and are deviated by some minimum amount that varies slightly with wavelength, causing a prism effect where the colors separate. The minimum deviation angle is 22 degrees for red light in ice, which is why the halo begins to appear at an angular separation of 22 degrees from the sun (which is being blocked by my hand in the image to prevent it from saturating the camera).

Supposedly the 22 degree halo is orders of magnitude more commonplace than the rainbow, but is much less commonly observed since it occurs in a part of the sky we are conditioned since birth to avoid looking at.