- Will the new Beady Eye album be less of a disappointment
than the band’s 2011 debut, “Different Gear, Still Speeding” and make everyone
think Liam Gallagher is a musical genius again? That question is yet to be
answered, but the promotional process for “BE” has begun and those involved are
talking it up like pros. Beady Eye recorded the project in London with
super-producer Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio and it is a hodgepodge of
production styles and ideas: cassette tapes, samplers, and iPhone apps, among
others. "Working with Sitek just opened something up in us," Liam
Gallagher said. “He’s without a doubt the best producer I’ve ever worked with,
a real outlaw - he doesn’t give a f*ck, no rules. We had a new found focus when
we were writing it - we really got our heads down and got our shit together -
clear heads, none of that crap from the '90s. It feels like a really special
record for us.” The first single from the album, titled “Flick of the
Finger,” hit U.S. radio stations a few days ago and Sitek is doing his part to
hype the project as well, which obviously would boost his profile as a producer
if it’s good. "It’s
a trippy record," Sitek added. "The strength of the tracks is so high
that we got to really play around. It’s rock band instrumentation, but used in
a different way. Liam’s vocals are incredible, all you have to do is turn on a
microphone and you’re like, ‘That sounds like a record!’ You don’t have to do
anything to them." Gallagher also released the track listing Wednesday on
Twitter, which typically feels like a meaningless exercise because the mere
words in a title’s track don’t often have a lot of meaning without lyrics and
chords to fill them out. Maybe this time Beady Eye will live up to its own
self-created hype……..
- The Sahara is the world’s most-famous desert, but 5,000
years ago it was (allegedly) anything but dry and arid. Thanks to the
wicked-smaht folks at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology, the world now
knows that it is possible that North Africa's modern-day desert paradise was
once full of lakes and grasslands with hippos and giraffes. According to David
McGee, an MIT paleoclimatologist and the study’s lead author, this sudden
geographical transformation 5,000 years ago was one of the planet's most
dramatic climate shifts. He and his team sifted through 30,000 years of dust and
ocean-bottom muck retrieved with ocean drilling ships and determined that this transformation
took place nearly simultaneously across the continent's northern half. The dust
used in the study blew west from Africa and dropped into the Atlantic Ocean and
the researchers analyzed the shifting levels of windblown dust in the ocean
sediments for clues to Africa's climate and how it has changed over time. The
more dust found from a specific period of time, the drier the conditions at the
time. Less dust, conversely, means a wetter environment. In this study, the wet
period, called the African Humid Period, was shown to have started and ended
suddenly. That finding was previously confirmed by other studies, but the MIT
researchers learned from their analysis that near the Humid Period's end about
6,000 years ago, the dust was at about 20 percent of today's level, far less
dusty than previous estimates. From this study, scientists should be able to
gain a better understanding of how changing dust levels relate to climate by
providing inputs for climate models. Sahara desert dust is a primary component
of modern-day ocean sediments off the African coast and has been known to
matriculate in the atmosphere all the way to North America…….
- Last season was an emphatic letdown for the Boston Red Sox
and their fans. Their 69-93 record and last-place finish in the AL East were
proof that their two World Series titles of the past decade were long gone, but
it wasn’t until Wednesday night that the impact of their decline in success on
the field finally filtered into the stands. A string of 820 consecutive home
sellouts end for the Red Sox in an 8-5 loss to Baltimore. That smashed the previous record of 455 in Major League
Baseball, set by the Cleveland Indians from 1995-2001, when they won six
consecutive division titles and two American League pennants. The Red Sox broke
the record on Sept. 8, 2008 and by the streak’s end, they had sold out 794
regular-season games and an additional 26 in the postseason. Both the
regular-season and overall streaks were the longest in major professional
sports, with the previous record of 814 held by the NBA's Portland Trail
Blazers. The team acknowledged the end of the streak in a press release,
although it probably should have ended last season, when the ballpark was less
than full on most nights, but the team insisted it sold enough seats to satisfy
the sellout criteria. During the streak, the Red Sox averaged 36,605 tickets
sold per game, according to data provided by the time. When the streak began in
2003, Fenway Park's seating capacity was only 34,807. That number has since
been expanded as the team won two championships and found ways to cram more
seats into uncomfortable places and charge big money for them. "The streak
is a reflection of a phenomenal period of baseball in Boston and of America's
greatest ballpark," principal owner John W. Henry said. "But more
than that, it is a testament to the baseball passion of New England fans. Team
chairman Tom Werner and CEO Larry Lucchino both issued comments on the end of
the streak, giving credit to the fans for helping their organization make a lot
of money, er, carve out its place in sports history……..
- Every now and then, an offer comes along to buy an
abandoned home or building and return it to its former glory – in a new
location. This would be one of those occasions and Hope, Indiana is the place.
Hope, a small town in Bartholomew
County, is home to a fixer-upper that is also a mover-somewhere-elser. The home
in question was built in the 1800s and it is one the market for the low, low
price of $1 – as long as the person buying it is willing to lift it off its
foundation and move it to a new location. The Hope Community Center owns the
house and its director, Julie Begin, says her organization bought the house
only for the land it sits on. That land would allow the HCC to expand its
services, but doing so means getting rid of the house and while knocking
something down is always fun, Begin believes there is some life left in the
place. “The house needs a family to live in it. It’s a beautiful house and it’s
a large house and it fits into the character of Hope and the history,” she
said. According to Begin, there is too much history to tear the house down and
in conjunction with the Indiana Historical Society, she is attempting to find a
buyer. Moving an entire house is a huge endeavor, but Begin believes the house
is sturdy enough to withstand the rigors of the move. “The house would be very
sound and even after moving it would be as structurally as sound as some of the
houses being built today because of the way it was built,” she said. The
deadline for anyone interested in buying the house is the end of August and if
no buyer is found by then, Begin says it will be knocked down………
- Progress is happening in Pakistan. A housewife in the Asian nation’s tribal
belt has made history by becoming the first woman from the über-conservative
region to run for office. “The women in the Federally Administered Tribal
Areas (FATA) have faced many challenges because of unnecessary restrictions on
them and rigid tribal traditions,” Badam Zari said. “I want to give voice to
our voiceless women.” Zari is running in her native Bajaur, a district in
Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal region. She faces a stiff challenge not only because
of her gender, but because she is one of 45 candidates on the ballot for the
May 11 parliamentary elections. Bajur has a reputation as a place where militants
wage war against state institutions, such as schools for girls and women. Pakistan’s
army has been attempting to rid the area of militants over the past five years,
with minimal success. The problems facing women persist, including maternal
mortality and women’s literacy rankings, two categories where Pakistan ranks
among the world’s worst. Zari made it clear she is running for office to
do something about these serious problems. Her husband is a school principal, so education is clearly an
important issue for her as well. Also on her list of motives for running is the
rampant corruption of who served their own interests and not those of the
tribal population as a whole. Ironically, she is a champion of women’s
education bur has only completed the fifth grade. If Zari does want
to get elected, she may want to start greasing palms in order to successfully
compete against
established politicians who bribe voters to get into office. She must also deal
with the likely backlash against her candidacy amongst conservatives in the
region who still do not believe a woman has the right to run for office………
No comments:
Post a Comment