“Our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty.” -Samuel Adams

Vdov.net is not normally prone to politicking and this post is mostly about principles rather than politics. The authors here, from what I know of them personally, tend toward unfettered freedom rather than more tempered and restrained freedom. I am personally enamoured of the cause of liberty wherever it arises. I have a soft spot in my heart for all democratic reformers and movements that sincerely want to replace repressive regimes with open societies governed by democratic principles, whether that be anti-theocratic student movements in Iran or the Free Tibet movement. (more…)

I am trying to move Vdov into the times with some major updates (mostly coinciding with the release of Wordpress 2.5). Unfortunately I had the old mechanics of the site heavily customized and/or written from scratch, so now that Wordpress is actually capable of doing what it is I want, it’s taking me some time and effort to make the switch. Point being, Vdov will probably look a little weird now and then as I test some stuff out. Don’t worry, all your favorite content is still here (and even backed up, theoretically).

Cheers.

Why? has bubbled incredibly beneath the surface for far too long. They now have 3 LPs and 2 EPs without ever garnering major attention even amongst the indie crowd. With almost no “mainstream” recognition “Elephant Eyelash” was one of the best albums of 2005 that no one heard. Perhaps this was due to the tepid 7.8 from “Pitchfork Media” for the wonderfully energetic, breakthrough LP or the refusal by front man Yoni Wolf (Why? himself) to conform to normal indie musicality. My guess is that despite the fact that Chris Dahlen at Pitchfork seems more concerned with understanding Why? (”…I finally understand how he feels.”) what really throws people is the genre bending, musical avalanche unleashed on Elephant Eyelash and, more importantly, this year’s “Alopecia.” Why? is tracing out a wonderful arc with every album rising higher than the last and Alopecia makes the trend solid. The quartet of Yoni Wolf (the original holder of the moniker “Why?”), his brother Josiah, Matt Meldon, and Doug McDiarmid are ready for some attention, which they seem to be getting. Or at least the indie critic establishment is taking them seriously or at least writing more seriously about them as can be seen here and better yet here.
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I don’t normally just repost something that someone has already done. However, I thought that at least someone might like this little gem about the calculation for the date of Easter. The Wikipedia article also goes into a lot of depth. I had no idea this was such a complicated endeavor or that ancient people had spent so much time calculating the occurrence of this most glorious date. My absolute favorite part of the whole calculation is the beautiful condensation of all of this math into a nice easy to read, no math involved, histogram. The only anomaly seems to be Easter dates that fall on the 26th of April are moved to the 19th. The upshot of all of this is that this very Easter (today) happens to be the earliest Easter that any of us sad mortals will ever experience barring massive increases in human longevity since the next march 23rd Easter will be 2160. The earliest date possible for Easter is March 22nd which last happened in 1818 and won’t happen again until 2285. We can all rest easy though because barring rapture most of us will still be around in 2038 when we have the latest Easter of our lifetime (barring once again ludicrous increases in human longevity or singularity events). For those that don’t care a whit about Easter… well have fun roasting in the fires of hell for all eternity. I hope all your fancy math comforts you then.

Has anyone watched the Lost episode from last week? I think Teebs did if his away messages are any indication. They went back to the whole flash-forward thing again. I may be in the minority here but generally I like the idea of flash-forwards. I think they added a lot to episode 401. This episode was a complete wash though. They focused way too much on Sayid in the future and seemed to, once again, just randomly introduce ridiculous plot lines (with the whole Ben Linus boss thing in the future) that can’t possibly all be resolved no matter how long the show goes on. And, most importantly, they sacrificed any significant development on the island for this new crap in the future. Lame.

On an unrelated note, I was talking with afischer tonight about some random things and brought up my previous ‘Gmsh’ post. He said mostly what I expected … that is, “no one will remotely care about Gmsh”, but then said (paraphrasing), “no, I bet there is some ridiculous vdov.net groupie out there somewhere who feverishly anticipates anything new that comes onto the site”. I replied, “yeah, there may be, but I’m pretty sure if I met this person I would likely hate him/her … what does that say about vdov.net?”.

Nothing good, that’s for sure. Ha!

You have all probably forgotten that once there was a podcast on this site. The podcast isn’t coming back but something very similar is! That’s right, the Rt. Rev. Fischer, like Lazarus himself, has risen from the tomb. I am now an official DJ for Brown Student Radio (BSR). They liked me enough to give me a 1.5 hour timeslot on Saturday starting at 5:30. You can listen to it streaming live or you can get after the fact at my very own archive of the show. The on air radio station is WELH Providence 88.1FM. However, you are not going to hear my show on the actual radio airwaves. This is because BSR shares their station air time with The Wheeler School, a very nice private high school in Providence. So Wheeler broadcasts from 6:00am to 7:00pm and BSR gets the rest of the time. My show inconveniently ends at 7:00, just shy of actual airtime. Hopefully, I can get a real on-air slot over the summer (who knows?). There are a lot of things that are nice about BSR compared to my former radio home WBOR Brunswick 91.1FM. It is a more tightly run ship, their website is much better, and their internet broadcast is much superior. The drawbacks are a meager 150W broadcast tower (compared to 300W at WBOR), the fact that they share the air time with the Wheeler School and a Spanish language station, and they really make you work to be a DJ (8 hours of service a month… not that bad really). However, BSR is trying to get a license for a Low Power FM station under the official call letters “WBSR.” Low Power FM stations are something that I have wanted for a long time and in my opinion would radically change the US music scene if they proliferate. For more information check out The Prometheus Radio Project and the Wikipedia article on LPFM. I am planning on generating a good rant on the FCC and its problems, corporate radio, LPFM, and various related topics, but for now just know that the Rt. Rev. Fischer is back on the air.

This is a bit old but it never seem to have caught on. Some of you may have seen the wonderful work of Brad Neely in the form of cartooning Cox and Combes’ “Washington (NSFW or the kids) or in the form of his own History Lesson Part 1 among others. He has a kind of Mitch Hedberg hilarity (RIP) that is so understated and strange that it cannot help but make you laugh (although Mitch doesn’t much do it for me… Neely does). I finally got my act together to watch the difficult “Wizard People Dear Reader.” WPDR is a set of two CD’s (freely downloadable) that can be played concurrently with the movie “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” You play the DVD on mute and through the CD’s Neely provides the narration for what you are seeing. Hilarity ensues. Perhaps the easiest way to watch the movie is on youtube. Youtube user “HarryPotterCentral” has uploaded 35 short videos that comprise the whole movie synced with Neely’s narration. It is definitely worth a gander, even if you only make it through some of the full length movie.

When listening to Wooden Wand (James Jackson Toth) in the many monikers and lineups that he has participated in (Wooden Wand and the Vanish Voice, etc.) it is most difficult for me to write a review from the dispassionate music critic. The hubris of the detached observer is sheared away, very often, leaving a captivated fan and nothing more. In my last review of Wooden Wand (in this incarnation it was Wooden Wand & the Skyhigh Band) I wanted more Toth and an accessible sound. That is definitely the theme of of “James & the Quiet.” It is both a blessing and a curse however. Toth explodes into some tracks with sounds and lyrics that seal my respect for the artist. There are others that have a Dylanesque ernestness but don’t quite live up to the promise of the tracks that really make the album. (more…)

Living in the City By The Lake has many perks and a vibrant, independent music and art scene is one of them. Hardly a week goes by without new contemporary music of all stripes played in every place from concert halls to seedy bars. Last weekend was especially fine since acosta and myself were able to take in some culture and finally get a chance to see the much loved vdov favorites Akron/Family. We also stumbled into the official Chicago SxSW pre-game send-off for the Midwest bands that are now hitting the stages at the country’s most venerable independent music festival. Both shows were quite interesting but quite different. The venues are seemingly similar but it belies their differences. It gave a good insight into the strange topology of the independent music scene in Chicago and elsewhere. (more…)

Devotees will notice that the vdov.net gallery (including the now-famous Shawna’s Gallery) has been down for some time now. This is because I was stupid and was running a release of the software which was far too current and untested. Unfortunately reverting to a previous core version isn’t an option. So, as soon as the good people who develop gallery release 2.2 RC 2, we should be back on track. For the time being, sit tight, and I’ll let everyone know when this occurs. Cheers.

Greetings to the vdov.net community on this, our first post of the new year. I wish I were coming to you under happier circumstances, but alas I am sitting in an airport bar (having a few beers) in Portland, Oregon waiting for my vastly delayed flight to Chicago. I will almost certainly miss my connection in Chicago to Indianapolis, so expect more posting later in Chicago. I thought I’d take this opportunity to write about something you all must have noticed — the ads you now see here at vdov.net. As I have mentioned earlier, I have no intention of actually ever keeping adspace as a permanent part of this website, but I decided it was interesting enough to try out and write about. So, here are some stats. My apologies for the crappy formatting. (more…)

Some of you (ok, let’s be honest, only a few of you) may have noticed a lack of new programming here at vdov.net recently. This is mostly because I and the other writers here have been a) on vacation/traveling or b) working on other projects. Recently myself and Alex Boone (site link in sidebar) finished up a blog design and implementation for Commentary Magazine. You can have a look at the site here. I can’t say it’s 100% done yet but it’s very close if not complete. All this wordpress work for Commentary made me anxious to spruce up my own site. Those of you who know me know that my definition of “spruce up” usually constitutes simplification and streamlining. So that’s what I tried to do. It’s mostly another minimalistic theme I pulled from the net with a few random (but important) tweaks. Enjoy.