It’s the end of the month, so… my favorite music of the last 30 days.

1. Chatmonchy, “Otogino kuni no kimi”
from the 2006 album Miminari

No idea what it means, unfortunately (lyrics are here), but my heart just leaps once Hashimoto Eriko gets to the chorus about 35 seconds in.

Amazon link.
Official website.

———-

2. Chatmonchy, “Joshi tachi ni Asu wa Nai”
from the 2007 Joshi tachi ni Asu wa Nai single

I believe it’s roughly translated as “There Is No Tomorrow For The Girls” (or “Girls Will Not Have Tomorrow?”). Chatmonchy is my new favorite Japanese band.

YesAsia link.
Video on YouTube. (Fantastic, by the way.)

———-

3. Chillitees, “Sama Na”
from the 2006 album Extra Rice

CHORUS
Sama na
Wag ka nang magtanong
Lapit na
Ipikit ang mata

Ibigay mo ang yong damdamin
At ibibigay ang iyong hiling
Walang tayong mapapansin
Walang iba kundi sarili natin
Magdamag tayong magsasaya
Nakatitig sa iyong mata
Hangang maabot natin ang ligaya
Kaya’t sa ‘kin ay sumama na

[repeat CHORUS]

Mula ngayon ay wala ng iba
Ikaw lang ang tanging kailangan
Wag ka nang mag-alinlangan
Sa buhay ko’y ikaw lamang

[repeat CHORUS]

Ako magbibigay ng ‘yong kaligayahan
Hawakan mo aking kamay di kita pababayaan
Gagawin ang mga bagay na di pag sisisihan
Lumayo kaman mananatili pa rin sa ‘kin
Ang pusong inaalay at malalim na damdamin
Kahit anong gawin hindi ito maisasalin
Sumama ka at libutin natin ang buong mundo
Ang oras ay ating limutin
At ating ipanalangin na itong paglalakbay
Tuloy tuloy nating tahakin
Wag nang pag isipan pa
Lumapit ka’t tanggalin ang pangangamba
Pagkat ikaw at ako punung puno ng alaala

[repeat CHORUS]

No need to translate the lyrics, really; of course it’s about sex.

Amazon link.
Official website.
Video on YouTube.

———-

4. Some Tweetlove, “La Nostalgie Des Hauts-Fourneaux”
from the 2006 album Cafard Mondial

First heard it on a Wire compilation, and it’s been running through my head ever since.

Matamore link. (Couldn’t find a US distributor for some reason, so I bought my copy here.)
Official website.

———-

5. The Thermals, “A Pillar of Salt”
from the 2006 album The Body, the Blood, the Machine

We were born to sin
we were born to sin!
we don’t think we’re special sir
we know everybody is
we built too many walls
yeah we built too many walls!
And now we gotta run
a giant fist is out to crush us

We run in the dark
we run in the dark!
we don’t carry dead weight long
we send them along to heaven.
I carry my baby
i carry my baby!
Her eyes can barely see
her mouth can barely breathe
i see she’s afraid
she could see the danger
we don’t want to die
or apologize
for our dirty god
our dirty body

Now i spit to the ground
i spit to the ground!
i won’t look twice at dead walls
i don’t wanna white pillar of salt
I carry my baby
i carry my baby!
Her eyes can barely see
her mouth can barely breathe
i can see she’s afraid
that’s why we’re escaping
so we won’t have to die
we won’t have to deny
our dirty god
our dirty bodies!

I’m jumping on the Thermals bandwagon late (thanks Allan!): a scary song from a scary album. (Though the song and the video sound awfully cheery.)

Amazon link.
Official website.
Video on YouTube.

Popularity: 1% [?]

(No, it’s not an attempt at poetry; just notes.)

And so, the beginning stages:

Continue Reading »

Popularity: 1% [?]

1. Via Kerim Friedman at Savage Minds, Alton Thompson at Conductor’s Notebook:

Half the students who begin school do not finish.

If this statement described an American inner-city public school system, the story would already have made headlines. Outraged parents would be asking hard questions of the mayor at the next press conference. If it described undergrad athletes at your local collegiate sports factory, the NCAA would already be leaning on the program to change something.

But this statistic is not about those students. It describes students enrolled in American Ph.D programs.

This dirty secret, long known to officials at universities, is gradually becoming public. For decades, half the students who begin doctoral programs at American universities have been walking away.

…

The secret is dirty because the students who walk away are not failing. They are successful. The grades non-completers earn are as high as those of their colleagues who complete their degrees. Recent research shows the undergraduate GPAs of female students, in fact, to be higher among the walkoffs than among their colleagues who finish. The secret is dirty because these are adults who have already completed at least two college degrees just to get where they are. Their competence for academic work, and their willingess to follow through, is established. The secret is dirty because these are adults who have invested enormous amounts of time and personal resources into the very programs they decide to abandon.

And from the original article, Barbara E. Lovitts and Cary Nelson on grad student attrition from AAUP’s Academe magazine:

As we begin to think through the differences such practical programmatic changes can make, a more fundamental conclusion begins to take shape-that the real problem is with the character of graduate programs rather than with the character of their students. Yet most faculty assume that the best students finish their degrees and the less talented and qualified depart. Those who leave are often called “dropouts” to emphasize both volition and inevitability; the term suggests the problem is with the student, not with the program.

Everything about the way students depart reinforces this conviction. Most leave silently; they simply disappear, without communicating any reservations about the program to faculty or administrators. Exit interviews or follow-up contacts with departing students are rare. Moreover, students are effectively discouraged from voicing complaints while they are still actively enrolled. The “successful” student is “happy” and compliant; such a student is more likely to receive financial support, good teaching assignments, and strong letters of recommendation. A student who criticizes the program is a problem. Of course this reasoning is circular and self-fulfilling, since complaining students may well be turned into problem students by neglect or discrimination. Meanwhile, the accumulated silence of previous “dropouts” reinforces the view faculty prefer to hold: the problem is with the student, not the program.

2. Playing around with the Jing Project. Easy as pie — I just used it to walk a student through the U.S. Census Bureau website, using City College’s address for the demo. My first attempt.

3. And via Stereogum: the dance routines of inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center. It’s funny, yes. But this isn’t funny: the massacre of Muslim prisoners at Bagong Diwa Prison is only a little over two years old. And the Philippines seems hellbent on pushing more people into prison, including children — a 30 square-meter cell in Quezon City Jail, for instance, that holds 20 has 180 to 200 inmates crammed in it.

4. My brand strategies professor handed an article out yesterday from the Washington Post by Karen DeYoung about “boosting the image and effectiveness of U.S. military operations around the world” and “establishing a brand identity.” The $400,000 monograph from the Rand Corporation — though the discounted web price is $27! — argues, among the following (this is from the DeYoung article):

[Todd C.] Helmus and his co-authors concluded that the ‘force’ brand, which the United States peddled for the first few years of the occupation, was doomed from the start and lost ground to enemies’ competing brands.

Helmus added “that it could be too late for extensive rebranding of the U.S. effort in Iraq.” I think my professor was amused by all this. I wasn’t.

5. Going to hear Slint perform all of Spiderland at Bimbo’s tonight. And I’m representin’ by wearing my “SUPPORT PINOY ROCK” t-shirt from SaGuijo.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Right now I’m reading this excellent — no, fantastic — book entitled It’s All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff by Peter Walsh. No, it’s not exactly about organizing your clutter — it’s about examining your emotional attachment to objects and why you still hang on to them. And yes, it sounds like a self-help book, despite my misgivings regarding the genre. But it absolutely works. The only reason I haven’t finished it is that I’m going on a decluttering rampage at the apartment right now.

Continue Reading »

Popularity: 1% [?]

Well, it’s done. Three hundred and six pages, on their way via Federal Express to my editor in Philly later today. Just don’t ask about how long it took to research and write, because the whole process cost me more than you can ever, ever imagine.

Continue Reading »

Popularity: 1% [?]