Yeti Menace

For those of you who don’t know Paul Krugman, you should. Krugman is an economics professor at Princeton and a popular pundit who has appeared on virtually every major news program around. He has been on my must read list for many years now and I look forward to his insightful columns in the New York Times like an eight year old boy on Christmas morning. Krugman has been a fierce critic of the disastrous economic policies of the Bush administration, and some of his recent columns rip them a new one.

This morning Krugman was awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize for Economics ”for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity.” Congratulations, Paul, you are officially fucking brilliant.

The first of only four live performances for the tenth anniversary of SUNN O)))’s creation and the recording of their first album The GrimmRobe Demos was last night. Only Sunn O)))’s core members Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson were on stage. No guests. No vocals. No keyboards. Just them on stage wearing their characteristic ‘grim robes’ (long hooded cloaks). The air was filled with fog and they played at their signature deafening volume.

For the uninitiated, Sunn O))) play extremely slow and heavy, using droning guitars, frequently heavily drop-tuned to extremely low tunings such as drop A and drop B, accompanied by feedback and other sound effects to create dark, ominous soundscapes. Their performances usually last 1 & 1/2 hours.  This is a marathon experience. They did not disappoint last night. Many who began the performance in the front of the stage dismissed themselves after the first thirty minutes, either from exhaustion or boredom (the bored being those who read about them from the New York Times Arts section article but never having listened to any of the discography). Those who held on got to experience mammoth soul shaking set to harmonics that rattled the bowels.

The venue was an interesting choice. Originally, the show was set to be at Safari Sam’s off Hollywood Blvd. At the last moment, the Regent Theater was picked for some reason (either the crowd was too big or too small–the latter being the more probable). The Regent has the dubious honor of being an adult movie theater until 2000. The shell of a building is hard cement with a sloping floor that made standing or sitting an uncomfortable experience yet somehow added to the show.

Nothing more to say. The initiated stand in awe of Sunn O)))…

As of October 7, Prop 8 supporters are raising more money that those who oppose the measure, according to this very useful feature on LATimes.com.

Look at that big friggin’ circle over Orange County. Thanks assholes!

But worse than that is the fact that the top 3 financial supporters aren’t even residents of California. Maybe you’ll recognize such friendly faces as the Knights of Columbus (New Haven, CT; $1,275,000) and the National Organization for Marriage (Princeton, NJ; $941,134.80), who, incidentally, came up with this whole fucking idea in the first place. And who could forget our friends at Focus On the Family (Colorado Springs, CO; $439,643.66)?

Wanna find out more about who is putting the money behind Prop 8? Check out Californians Against Hate. Because after all, who doesn’t hate hate?

Stanley Kubrick’s classic film The Shining has a firm place in my Vers-Top 10 Movies of All Time, and the online exhibit “Artwork and No Play,” running through Oct. 31 at the Phone Booth Gallery, is a truly delightful tribute to some of the most memorable moments from the film.

Pictured: Kevin Tong’s “Wave of Mutilation” + David Owen’s “Corrective Action”

My favorite moment in last night’s second presidential debate between Obama and McCain was at the end when McCain bumbled into the middle of the stage directly in front of Brokaw, obscuring his teleprompter and forcing Brokaw to ask him to move.

Arianna Huffington commented on this so eloquently in her morning post:

Brokaw might as well have been speaking on behalf of the future: Senator McCain can you please get out of the way so we can get on with it?

I could not agree more.

Design for Obama

The strangest feeling as one stood in the audience for their final U.S. show: this was not about the band; this was about the audience. How the audience reacted to hearing the music as if it was played underwater or in the next room really loud. How it was not necessary to actually see the musicians playing since the light show obliterated the view. How every smug, self-satisfied person in the audience stood in awe, not of the band, but of how they were able to withstand the barrage of noise when the final song with its 15 minute sonic explosion was performed. Pity…the Holy Grail remained so because few, if any, actually saw the bloody thing. Nostalgia sux.