Multiple sclerosis, or MS, is an autoimmune disorder that affects the brain and spinal cord. The immune system destroys the patient's own myelin, the protective membrane wrapped about the nerves, thus disrupting communication with the central nervous system. About 50 percent of patients are unable to walk 25 years after their diagnosis.
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Disneyland: it used to be the happiest place on earth and now it's just a fetid wasteland of contagious disease. The number of measles cases from the Disneyland outbreak almost doubled this week. At least 85 cases are now confirmed in seven states, the latest in Nebraska. Health officials in Alaska are currently monitoring another potential case in Alaska.
Bridgetbecause i will be monopolizing the fuck out of the television when i get back
We've got bars and restaurants with big screen TVs, drink and food specials, and of course, spots serving up wings for the big game. [ more › ]
People are putting butter in their coffee. And hey, if you're just craving a new flavor experience, more power to you. The problem is that Bulletproof Coffee, the company behind the trend, is claiming that drinking a mug of fatty joe every morning instead of eating breakfast is a secret shortcut to weight loss and mental superpowers, and now the butter coffee has developed a cult of highly caffeinated, shiny-lipped adherents. So now we have to talk about it.
When people poked fun at Pharrell’s hat, he really doubled-down and owned the moment. Now he and his hat will achieve animated immortality (the hat’s so happy, it’s smiling!). We have more on that story, as well as a rare interview with Bob Dylan, a new track from Aphex Twin and music videos from 50 Shades (don’t act like you’re not at least curious) in today’s Music Dispatch!
Pharrell Williams, the most omnipresent man in music (possibly through cloning, but we can get into that another time), will be extending his realm of influence into Springfield. The Man With The Brown Hat will play himself in an upcoming episode of The Simpsons. Entertainment Weekly reports that the episode, titled “Walking Big & Tall”, will be based on a true story, popularized last year by This American Life, about a composer in the 1980s who conned a number of cities into buying recycled city-pride songs. In The Simpsons version, Pharrell saves the day, writing Springfield a truly original song. This comes on the heels of Pharrell and Al Gore’s “Live Earth” multi-continent concert announcement. How can one man be on all seven continents AND a cartoon show at once, you ask? Could it be… clones?? [EW]
Trading card company Topps is giving Eddie Vedder, of The Chicago Cubs…, excuse me, of Pearl Jam, the baseball card treatment, along with fellow musicians Jack White and 50 Cent. They will be part of the “First Pitch” series of notable people tossing out the -you guessed it- first pitch. Of the group, at least Vedder is a life-long baseball fan. MLB Pitcher Bronson Arroyo once shared an anecdote with Alternative Nation about Vedder giddily asking for players from the Pirates to sign a ball he had caught in the stands during batting practice. [Alternative Nation]
Yesterday, we premiered the debut album of punk-rockers Happy Fangs, who many (ourselves included) have compared to a modern day Bikini Kill. Now we learn that Bikini Kills’ own Kathleen Hanna has leant her voice to the Sundance-bound, MTV-produced short film, Myrna The Monster. The adorable trailer shows the trials and tribulations of a typical intergalactic millennial, and aside from the space-travel and kidnapping, her life does not seem that different from our own. The soundtrack will be provided by the YACHT offshoot, BOYS. Hopefully this short will make it to the small screen or the internet-screen shortly. [Stereogum]
With last year’s SYRO, Aphex Twin got back to business after a looooong hiatus, and now shows no signs of letting up. Yesterday, he released a jazzy, brooding remix of “Diskhat ALL Prepared1mixed [snr2mix]“, the first track off of today’s Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments PT 2 EP, available at Warp. [Pitchfork]
Burial’s William Bevan has also quietly released a new single, “Temple Sleeper”, which gives off a very X-Files vibe. It’s available now as a 7in with a remix by Dusk & Blackdown on the back. [Consequence of Sound]
The Fader introduced us to Brooklyn’s Body Language’s simple, dance-happy electropop track, “Really Love”, and now it’s on repeat over here. The vinyl will be available as of February 17th on their website.
The constantly touring yet still elusive Bob Dylan gave his first interview in three years, choosing AARP, The Magazine as the publication through which to break his silence. Yes, this may seem like the punchline to an obvious joke, but it’s actually a pretty cool and relevant choice for both parties, considering AARP has the world’s largest magazine circulation, and their editor-in-chief, Robert Love, is a 20 year veteran (and former managing editor) of Rolling Stone. In the interview, Dylan discusses his love for Sinatra, as well as his new record, Shadows in the Night.
While we’re discussing legacy acts, Rush have announced tour dates for their 40th anniversary tour, which they have hinted will likely be the last of their legendary magnitude. The tour will hit 34 North American cities, starting early May. Tickets go on sale January 30th. [Rolling Stone]
Let’s just knock a bunch of music videos out of the way here real quick:
Chris Brown’s “Autumn Leaves (featuring Kendrick Lamar)” may have the most visually stunning music video of the young year, with its lush, sweeping landscapes and beautiful, saturated colors. It may also have one of the dullest videos, with a ninja-clad Brown walking around looking troubled, singing along to a mostly sleepy track. He has all those katanas, and doesn’t unsheathe a single one… [HipHopDX]
Ellie Goulding’s contribution to the 50 Shades of Grey soundtrack now has a visual component. In the video, we get glimpses from the much hyped movie (probably none that had to be reshot for lack of chemistry). The Weeknd’s track, “Earned It”, also had a video release this week, but that one probably has a few too many pasties to post here without getting a stern lecture from the editors. [Spin]
Experience a day in the life of the various members of Interpol in this new video for “Everything Is Wrong”. [Spin]
And, finally, Ex Hex’s super great video for “Don’t Wanna Lose” from the album Rips. As Pitchfork pointed out, the video is an homage to 1982’s Ladies & Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains.
Hope you enjoy all those, and enjoy your weekend, too. We’ll see you back here on Monday with more Music Dispatch!
The Waveform Of The Music
I HAVE ALWAYS WONDERED ABOUT THIS
I still can’t fathom how this works. It’s witchcraft as far as I’m concerned.
it’s beautiful
^
A baby pangolin is born quite helpless, other than the ability to suckle and cling. Until the baby is big enough to travel on its on, a mother pangolin will tote it around on her tail.
Images: Firdia Lisnawati
Jenny Han, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before
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Do you remember the awesome Mantis-cycle we posted a couple years ago? Silly us, we thought that particular mantis was the only one who had figured out how to use fiddleheads as a form of insect transportation. But look at this equally awesome character happily cycling away! This praying mantis was photographed by Eco Suparman in a cemetery in the Ambawang River Village in Borneo.
Now we’re wondering if these mantis cyclists hold races…
[via Telegraph.co.uk]
You need to listen to: Björk's Vulnicura
Where you can find it: Vulnicura is available for digital download and on CD. It is not available to stream for free.
What is it: Icelandic singer-songwriter Björk's ninth studio album was inspired by her break-up with her partner of many years. Vulnicura is an album about loss, despair, and grief that's as heartbreaking as it is beautiful.
Why you should listen: For 30 years, Björk's identity has been defined by her wild outfits, her ability to predict music technology, and her recognizable Icelandic accent. At their most revealing, her albums, notably Post and her debut Björk, opened a tiny sliver of her world to listeners. But on other albums, the singer-songwriter became lost behind her quirky persona. Vulnicura, Björk's ninth studio album, is a departure. It's the most intimate, honest album she's ever produced. There's no more hiding here.
The artist who once sang "If you complain once more/ you'll meet an army of me" on "Army of Me" (from Post) now begs for understanding and mutual respect on "Stonemilker," Vulnicura's lead track. She sings "Show me emotional respect/ I have emotional needs/ I wish to synchronize our feelings." The cocky bravado that made Björk a whirlwind of power has dissipated into a typhoon of heartbreak.
Of all the albums in Björk's discography, Vulnicura is probably closest to 2001's Vespertine, another album about love and loss. Vespertine had the same swelling symphonies, the same careful microbeats, the same inverted synthtones and analog keyboards. It, too, felt like swirling layers of sound coming together in a single instance to create individual songs. But where Vespertine struggled to rise above that sound, Vulnicura thrives.
Björk was largely inspired to write Vulnicura by her break-up with artist Matthew Barney, the father of her 12-year-old daughter. Unlike many of the best break-up albums, Vulnicura isn't about two people arguing and falling apart. It's about weathering the storm all on one's own. The album is best listened to in its entirety, a rarity in this age of singles and digital music. It tells a story of emotional upheaval and the desperate search for stability in its nine songs. It's just under one hour, but it carries the weight of months of anguish.
As beautiful as Vulnicura is in full, it's equally mesmerizing in its small moments, particularly in its lyrics. The liner notes for the album place each song on the continuum of her break-up. The first song is "9 Months Before"; the next is "5 months before."
The enormous, 10-minute long "Black Lake" sits at the center of the album, or "3 months after." The song begins with a single lonely string instrument playing a swelling melody until it is joined by Björk's wispy, trilling voice singing, "My soul torn apart/ my spirit is broken/ into the fabric of all/ he is woven." Between verses, the music fades to silence, blackness, darkness, only to be rejoined by some new thrumming or electronic layering; the noise jars just enough to keep each section uncomfortable, restless. The song fades out with the initial lonely strings leaving only the sound of grief.
The despair in "Black Lake" and the two songs that follow it, "Family" and "Notget," is aided by the work of Björk's co-producer Acra, whose beats sonically stab with the same weight as Björk singing "Is there a place/ where I can pay my respects/ for the death of my family." It's a difficult album to listen to, but Vulnicura is not an album without hope. The last third of the album keeps the plucking strings and electronic rhythms but it substitutes disparity for growth.
The album ends with "Quicksand," a song that starts with a tornado of thrumming sounds and micro-beats that is unrelenting in its power, toward the future where, "when she’s broken she is whole and when she’s whole she’s broken."
Björk told Pitchfork that she doesn't know how she'll perform Vulnicura live, because the weight of the album could drag her under its spell. But that's the brilliance of this album. It envelops listeners with its disparity, its difficulty, and its beauty. If that's a spell, it's one I'm happy to be under.
You'll know if you're in or out by ... the end of "Lionsong," the second track. Björk's music can be uncomfortable to listen to for the unaccustomed listener, because it doesn't always follow standard chord progressions. So give this one some time. If you're not hooked by the end of the second song, you won't enjoy the rest of the album.
Warning: This article contains images of nudity.
At the latest men's Paris Fashion Week, a provocative designer named Rick Owens unveiled a fashion trend we're calling "visible penis." Other names for the fashion include penis cloak, underdick, and peek-a-boo penis. The internet reacted as you'd expect.
But if you strip away all the giggles and furor, you'll find that Owens's latest collection, like all fashion, fits into a broader context within both his industry and life.
This isn't just about nudity. What Owens is doing is very subversively challenging Western cultural institutions — which are simultaneously obsessed with and repulsed by the phallus — by channeling his own complicated opinions of sexuality into his fashion sensibility.
What was perhaps most shocking about the visible penises was just how not shocking they really were. Mingled into the runway parade of be-smocked male models were just a few with their penises meekly peeking out through crotch-level openings. The subtlety of this execution underscored Owens' point. Runways all the world over have long provided a space for female models to tease audiences with bobbing breasts and visible nipples.
"Well," he asked i-D magazine, "isn't it time" for men to join the party?
Though Owens admitted that visible penis is a "simple, primal gesture," he's certain its many resonances were heard throughout the fashion world.
Said Owens: "You know I love a tiny, little gesture that packs the wallop."
Rick Owens (Francois Guillot/Getty)
Owens is an American designer whose intense reputation precedes him. The Independent has labeled him the Prince of Dark Design. According to LA Times magazine, his work is described as "goth, macabre, apocalyptic, glunge" (glunge, by the way, is how he describes his aesthetic — it's his own portmanteaux of the words "glamor" and "grunge"). And his models are "exquisitely tailored, dusty-hued creations," often appearing as "warriors fresh from a battle in Middle-earth."
His clothing changes very little from year to year, with a design inspired by his time at Catholic School, Owens told the New Yorker:
I always loved that aesthetic of all those robes dragging in those dusty temples, with Jesus and the disciples and all that. It was very exotic and very alluring to me in my very safe little world of small-town California. When I look around here in the studio, I see wanting to re-create those dusty temples and robes and stuff.
But his work isn't limited to paying homage to these historical forms — it's about experimenting with them. "Owens is a designer who pushes boundaries," says Paola Di Trocchio, Curator of Fashion and Textiles at the National Gallery of Victoria.
Owens also has a "very open view of sexuality," says Di Trocchio. Famously, he met his wife, Michèle Lamy, through a past boyfriend. Because most people knew him as gay at the time he began dating Lamy, he often felt compelled to expose his sexual past to his wife's friends before anyone could whisper to his wife, "You know, I think your husband's gay," he toldHint Magazine. He's since fully embraced what he believes is the generous spectrum of human sexuality:
I'm letting people know that the possibilities are endless. You can open your heart to love anybody. You can be available to more people than you think. There are no rules. You don't have to be just gay. You don't have to be just straight. Open your mind! You might not be able to be gay with most people, but maybe there's one person where it would work. So, it's not a big wide sweeping general rule ... It's not just about sex. It's all of that whole combination of things that make it work.
His complex sexuality plays an important part of his design process.
They usually … get folks talking.
As VICE points out, Owens has "perfected the art of merging shock value with innovative ideas in clothing."
Dazed dubbed Owens the King of Kink because of how readily he explores sex in his work. His spring/summer 2015 show, he told Dazed, was inspired by Nijinsky's ballet Afternoon of a Faun. "It basically all culminates with this faun masturbating on a nymph's scarf, so everybody in the audience, with all their jewels, are just waiting for this guy to hump the scarf," said Owens. "I love that!"
But even when his shows are not blatantly sexual, there's usually a heightened, performative aspect to them, as you can see from the video below. For his 2014 spring/summer fashion show, Owens peopled his stage with step squad performers dressed wearing his garments.
The theatrics were much more subtle than they had been in the past. The show started "very traditionally," according to William Van Meter, fashion writer at New York Magazine's The Cut:
[Men walked down the runway] with shorts over leggings, then shorts with pulled-up-to-the-hem socks, and then shorts over leggings over pulled-up-to-the-hem socks. Black washed-leather overcoats were soon joined by a wool duffle coat that looked like it had been splattered with blood.
It was only after the coats left the runway that things started to get edgy.
Then a kind of religious tribal element seeped in with shiftlike robes, some dangling with fluttering materials reminiscent of wind chimes. Some of them had an arched peephole opening revealing the model's manhood. This actually heightened the religiosity aspect. It wasn't done in bad taste, but it was mysterious, like sending out bold fertility gods.
(Kristy Sparrow/Getty)
Some of the pieces in the collection expose the model's chest; some, his thighs. But a few of them have fist-sized holes cut out around crotch-level to expose some of the genitals.
As Cosmopolitan writes, this was "like an extra neckline or collar stitched in the monastic-style garments. Of course, the only head poking out is ... well, it's a glans" (glans is the word for the bulbous tip of the penis. It comes from a Latin word meaning "acorn").
But exposed penises on the runway didn't interrupt the flow of the show. As Charlie Porter notes at the Financial Times, the penises were off the stage almost as soon as they were noticed. "Just as the show was turning into a game of spot the immodesty," writes Porter, "Owens snapped back to showing some coats and tops that were seriously complex constructions of quilting, fluting and defined line."
The audience was slow to respond to the visible penises, according to The Guardian, but as they "gradually realized that a taboo was being broken in front of their eyes, whispers and occasional giggles rippled" through the crowd.
Porter said the audience reaction was mixed, with the Brits "obviously giggling," and "editors and buyers from other territories looking less amused."
When penises do show up at fashion shows, it's usually in representational ways. Think Tom Ford's penis crucifix, which he premiered last June in London. Female nudity, on the other hand, is much more ubiquitous, with exposed nipples "the leftfield trend" of London's Fashion Week, according to The Guardian.
Di Trocchio points to British Costume historian Sir James Laver for one theory. Lavar argued that the history of fashion was "driven by shifting erogenous zones."
(Gordon Anthon/Hutton Archive/Getty)
For example, Di Trocchio says, "in the early nineteenth century men wore flesh-colored knitted stockings that gripped and accentuated the curve of their calf, highlighting an erogenous zone particular to the era."
Similarly, in the 1930s, open backs were all the rage, which probably had something to do with the growing interest in sunbathing. "Many dresses of [that] period look as if they had been designed to be seen from the rear," writes Laver.
With this in mind, suggests Di Trocchio, "Rick Owens' collection provides a possible shift to a new erogenous zone."
Owens told WWD that his twin inspirations for his line were the sphinx and a black-and-white movie about a submarine. Sphinxes, he said, are glamorous and exotic, but also mysterious. Who knows when they'll strike?
As for the inspiration he gleaned from underwater vessels:
It's about men being together in closed quarters having to maintain a sense of decorum under intense pressure, and when that happens, their best comes out and their worst comes out, a sense of order and a sense of honor can be enhanced, but then everything can fall apart and become primal.
Like most of his work, Owens told WWD he sees his Fall/Winter 2015 collection as an attempt to walk "on the razor's edge."
His work is a balancing act. His clothing is at once glamorous and grungy, high-brow and goth — "elegant monsters," as he described it to the New Yorker.
Maybe we're making too much of the penises. After all, Owens's show doesn't even make too much of them. In fact, they were barely noticeable at all.
Maybe that's what's going on here.
(Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty)
Unless male nudity is absolutely integral to the story or piece of art, producers tend to think it distracts from the quality of the product. Female nudity, on the other hand, even when it seems to have nothing to do with the plot at hand, is often welcome.
This also seems to be the case in fashion. Sheer tops are typical at runway shows, as are visible breasts. But most of this nudity — the overwhelming majority of it, in fact — doesn't make headlines. That's because it isn't headline-worthy. It's just breasts.
Jeremy Lewis at VICE argues that Owens took a similar "just a dick" approach to his show.
This particular display of genitals does not so much illicit lust as it does a naïve honesty, a shamelessness of the body, as if Adam never ate that apple and realized his own nakedness. Hey is my cock out? the models seem to ask. Oh, hey, it is. Huh. Well how about that.
The Telegraph's Bibby Sowray reached the same conclusion after speaking with the designer. "Owens's 'Free Willy' moment was also a tactic to challenge the fact that we don't bat an eyelid at female nudity on the catwalk, but when it's men it causes a fuss."
There's a case to be made, then, that Owens' penis smocks were about the normalization, or even the desexualization, of the male member.
But you might also see it as a type of sterilization of manhood; a metaphorical castration which leaves the penis fully intact while cutting away its inflated self-authorized illusion of grandeur.
Tim Teman developed this idea at the Daily Beast, arguing that the collection of "underwhelming" male members "brilliantly devastates penis power."
Look at these walnuts, women of the world: This ridiculous thing is the basis of patriarchy. This little scrunchy sack and mini-gherkin is the root of wars and female subjugation.
A different way of looking at the collection would be to see it as an embrace of the male form, which, as noted above, is under-appreciated in fashion settings.
"I always loved how the Japanese appreciated things that were damaged," Owens told the New Yorker. "They would elevate the idea of something damaged and make it beautiful." Maybe that's what visible penis is about: reminding everyone that male beauty properly displayed is just as lovely as female beauty.
It might also underscore a larger issue within fashion communities, as Julia Rubin, features editor at Racked, points out. "Male versus female nudity isn't a thing in fashion so much as male versus female model status is."
Unlike many other professional settings, modeling is a world where females enjoy a certain privilege their male counterparts can only dream of. As Racked explains, male models "still struggle with equal treatment" within the fashion world.
Back in October, in their annual report of world's top earning models, Forbes noted that 2013's top-earning model, Sean O'Pry, had an annual salary of an estimated $1.5 million, while the world's top-earning female model, Gisele Bündchen, pulls in some $42 million annually. The average female model's salary, at $41,300, is 148 percent more than the average male model's, according to payscale.com.
Thus, exposing a man's genitals on the runway could be read as a subversive slight on these issues within the industry.
But again, let's not overthink this. As Owens says,
I'm still not exactly sure what it is. That sounds lofty and I don't mean it to be, but there needs to be a certain ambiguity and mystery for it to be — for the lack of a better word — magic, and I'm working for that magic.
This list is based primarily on reviews and user activity from 2014, thus it should be though of as a "up and coming" list as opposed to an all-time top 100 (though there's some crossover: Porto's is still on here). [ more › ]
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Mmmm, Brazilian steak houses. Forget Chinese and Old Country Buffets, these rodizios are the true definitions of gustatory decadence and gluttony. All-you-can-eat grilled meat from the rotisserie, served table side--you don't even have to make the walk from your chair to the spread or stand in line behind some incompetent jackhole trying to scoop up Kung Pao Chicken with a set of tongs. And the best part...no, the two best parts?
1) The disc they give you when you sit declaring MAS! on the green-means-go side, and NO MAS! on the red, I'm-experiencing-hairline-cracks-along-my-small-intestine side.
2) The giant swords they use to skewer and serve everything from Brazilian sausages to boneless leg of lamb. And the resultant warning that all children in the rodizio should remain seated at all times.
Anyway, I'm sure this portable Brazilian BBQ doesn't produce meat packing quite the same magnitude of belly orgasms as those they use at the steak houses, but it still looks pretty alright for indoor, at-home use. You can also sit it on a camp stove to bring the flavors of Brazil to your outdoor adventures. I hear grizzlies are partial to Lombo com Queijo.
When used indoors, the Brazilian grill places over a gas stove burner so the gas flam can enter through a circular opening at its base, where it is diffused evenly to heat the food, inserted vertically on skewers inside. This package includes a pair of double skewers, 5 standard skewers, and a chrome-plated grill basket. Cook stake, chicken, fish, even vegetables, though why the hell would you want to do that? It's like the people who go to the rodizios and actually make a trip--like get up and walk over--to their salad bars. What a waste of energy and stomach space.
The stovetop/camping unit serves up to 8 people at a time, with a capacity for around 4-1/2 pounds of meat, all sizzled and ready de-skewer in less than 20 minutes. A catch basin at the bottom catches all meat drippings for use in Bloody Marys the next morning.
