Music videos: Shearwater "Quiet Americans," Tricky "Makes Me Wanna Die"

I heard "Quiet Americans" on Welcome to Night Vale (the "weather" for episode 99) a few weeks ago and was immediately obsessed with it. This happens to me every once in a while with music, but it's so rare that it always kind of surprises me.¹

So I've been listening to it over and over and over on YouTube² since, and chanced on a second song that I think pairs nicely with it,³ so here they are together. Maybe you'll like them, maybe you won't. Should maybe warn you that neither are exactly uplifting, go-out-there-and-kick-some-ass sorts of songs, though if you know me at all you wouldn't have been expecting that anyway.

I can't help it
If all the world is ending
If all the life is gone
While you're calling out this name

Where are the Americans?

Your dimmed conscience
Your hands and eyes that wander
Stumbling down the road
Or collapsing on parade

Or lying alone in the eastern light
Sleeping in the morning hours
The only sound
From the lantern-covered hills
The only light
From the day yet to begin
The only sign
Of the guns in silhouette
The only sound
The only light
Only, only

Our dull silence
Our disconnected lives
Pull out the lightning dust
At the mention of his name

Whither the Americans?

Shake the memories off
Hide the evidence under
Piss on the world below
Like a dog that knows his name

Where are the Americans?

All calling on their own tonight
Filling the remaining hours
The only sounds
Are the bells up on the hill
The only lights
Are the lanterns in the wind
The only sign
Skims the rust off of the rails
The only sound
The only light
Only, only

The only light
Is the day yet to begin
The only signs
Are the lives in silhouette
The only sound
Is the rushing of the wind
The only life
Is not the only life
Only, only
Only, only



She makes me wanna die
Follow where Mary goes
(And) cherish the things she knows
Says if I change my stride
Then I'll fly
She makes me wanna die

And change my stride
Then I'll fly

Look to the sun
See me in psychic pollution
Walking on the moon
And how could you dare?
Who do you think you are?
You're insignificant, a small piece, a(n) ism⁴
No more notice
You try to learn the universe
(And) can't even converse in universe⁵
You know it's ironic
Smoking hydroponic
She makes me wanna die

And change my stride
Then I'll fly

She makes me wanna die
Follow where Mary goes
(And) cherish the things she knows
Says if I change my stride
Then I'll fly

And change my stride
Then I'll fly

Look to the sun
See me in psychic pollution
(And) walking on the moon
(And) how could you dare?
Who do you think you are?
You're insignificant, a small piece, a(n) ism
No more notice
You try to learn the universe
(And) can't even converse in universe⁵
You know

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¹ On the off chance that you might be looking for something to think about besides what everyone else is thinking about today, I've collected a group of YouTube links for your listening enjoyment. I don't guarantee that they'll necessarily make your day any better, but the Soweto Gospel Choir and "Electric Lady" are at least really damned likely to help. Those feeling fragile of mood may also appreciate "Det Snurrar I Min Skalle," "Freedom 90," Bad Lip Reading, and Rich White Ladies.
As music I really really like tends to show up on the blog one way or another, you may remember seeing some of these here before:

• Lady Gaga "Bad Romance"
• Siouxie and the Banshees "Kiss Them For Me"
• Dolly Parton "Hard Candy Christmas"
• Lorde "Tennis Court" / "Royals"
• Vienna Teng "Hymn of Acxiom"
• Familjen "Det Snurrar I Min Skalle"
• DJ Tripp "Run This Firefly" (mashup)
• Pet Shop Boys "What Have I Done To Deserve This?"
• Goldfrapp "A&E"
• Bad Lip Reading "Russian Unicorn" and "(Rockin') All Night Long"
• George Michael "Freedom 90"
• Rich White Ladies "No Bad Vibez" / "Wimbledon" / "White Powder Perm"

And in the last couple months, prior to discovering Shearwater, I've been listening to these a lot:
• Tori Amos "Sweet the Sting"
• The Smiths "How Soon Is Now?"
• Sinead O'Connor "Fire on Babylon" / "Daddy I'm Fine"
• B-52s "Roam" (the video's a little yeesh, though)
• Dixie Chicks "Not Ready To Make Nice" / "Goodbye Earl"
• Luscious Jackson "Naked Eye"
• Chvrches "Bury It" ft. Hayley Williams
• the whole video for the Soweto Gospel Choir NPR Tiny Desk Concert
• Tori Amos cover of "Rattlesnakes" (originally Lloyd Cole and the Commotions) and "Time" (originally Tom Waits)
• Radiohead "Burn The Witch" / "Let Down"
• Amy Grant "What About the Love"
• Dan Wright cover of "Hide and Seek" (originally Imogen Heap)
• Mike Masse and Jeff Hall cover of "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" (originally Elton John) and "Africa" (originally Toto)
• Depeche Mode "Home" / "Shake the Disease"
• Miranda Lambert "Mama's Broken Heart"
• Gusgus "Within You"
• Janelle Monae "Electric Lady" / "Q.U.E.E.N." ft. Erykah Badu / "Sincerely, Jane"
• Tricky "Christiansands"
• Clams Casino "I'm God"
• Mike Morasky, Portal 2 soundtrack "I Made It All Up"
² Pending actual purchase of the album on a physical CD, which I do because I am uncool. This has to be a 2-album purchase, done through the Barnes & Noble website, though, and I am having a terrible time coming up with a second album to buy with it. Throw some suggestions back at me if you feel like it.
³ Not necessarily in the sense of having anything to do with it musically or thematically. I just like the way the one sounds after the other.
⁴ (I always heard "that is of," but some lyrics sites have it as "an ism," and I admit that it sure does sound like that's what she's saying even if my version makes more sense in context of the following line.)
⁵ (Some lyrics sites record it as "human verse" the first time and "universe" the second, but I'd always heard it as "universe" both times, and I think I still do.)

Pretty picture: Bulbophyllum lobbii

I responded to some of the comments people left on the previous post, but if you don't feel like checking on them:

The U.S. has not devolved into a Mad Max-style wasteland full of people shooting at one another, as it appeared might be the case following Dallas. So we have that going for us, at least, and I'm genuinely a little surprised. I remain really anxious about next week's Republican National Convention -- it would be difficult to create a more powder-keggy situation on purpose -- but maybe that, too, will pass without the country falling to pieces. Maybe there will even be no bloodshed. We can hope, at least. 2016 really should throw us a break sooner or later.

And as far as taking comfort from nature goes, of course that's a good thing. Election years are always¹ hard on me, but this year has been especially bad. It's much easier for things like Orlando / Philando Castile / Alton Sterling / Dallas to knock me off balance if there's also an election happening. And things get even worse if I start making weird assumptions like "calm" = "unconcerned," as I was kind of doing in that last post. So if looking at pictures of orchids is part of how you manage to stay functional, I apologize for making it more difficult to do that.

At the moment, I would really like to find something to do, but either don't have the resources or the temperament or both for most of the Black-Lives-Matter-related things I can think of, and to be honest I'm probably not in the right frame of mind to be useful at the moment even if presented with something useful to do.²

But we have an orchid, at least. And it's a pretty nice one, even. Bulbophyllum lobbii is apparently another really variable orchid species; the previously-seen B. lobbii specimens haven't looked much like this at all:

Bulbophyllum lobbii 'Kathy's Gold' (2013)

Bulbophyllum lobbii 'Sonoma Gold' (2015)

I suppose the other possibility is that some of these are misidentified, but on-line image searches show a lot of different-looking plants. I'm assuming it's probably just that variable.³ This year's plant is easily the prettiest of the three. Lucky for us.

In other news, I can now report that all five Amorphophallus are alive and working on leaves (or maybe blooms, but I'm assuming leaves):

It's still ridiculously late for this to be happening, and some of the leaf buds are still so short you can barely see them in the picture, but everybody's accounted for, and at least I don't have to worry that they've rotted. Hopefully they'll have time for photosynthesis before fall arrives.

-

¹ (For values of "always" greater than or equal to 1998.)
I paid attention to elections, and cared who won, prior to 1998, but it became personal in '98 because that was the year that all politicians of both parties ran against Ellen DeGeneres, and I was pretty newly out to people myself, and it was really, really tough to hear some of the things people were saying about LGBT Americans.
2004 and 2010 were also unusually difficult -- '04 because that was the year of "maybe we need a Constitutional Amendment to prevent the gays from getting married," and '10 because that was the year when Iowa's elections were partly focused on recalling the judges who had ruled in favor of gay marriage in 2009. So every six years, I guess, is an especially bad election for me, but none of them are ever actually good. And none of the especially bad ones were competitive with 1998 until this year.
² But e-mail or comment anyway, if you hear of something.
³ Like Rhynchostylis gigantea, it has a pretty large natural habitat -- Borneo, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines -- which probably explains a lot of the variation. It's also possible that they look different depending on growing conditions; I believe the 2015 and 2016 specimens were entered in the show by different exhibitors, based on how they were tagged and displayed.

Elsewhere on the Web -- Karma Police Edition

Things of interest from the internet:

1) I sort of already suspected that imidacloprid is not particularly good for the environment, but had avoided reading much on the subject because I didn't want to have to stop using the only thing I've got that seems to work. And then The Raw Story published an article about imidacloprid in water being linked to lower populations of snails, dragonflies, and other invertebrates. I don't really care about the snails so much, because what have snails done for me lately, but I would hate to be responsible for hurting any dragonflies. I mean, they eat mosquitoes. They're on our side. We don't want to mess with the dragonflies.

Imidacloprid is also often used in flea and tick control collars for cats and dogs, by the way, so don't think you're in the clear just because you don't use it on your plants.

Honeybee on unidentified cultivar of Bracteantha bracteosa.
2) On the other hand, the danger of imidacloprid to bees has maybe been exaggerated. At the very least, the people who are sure that colony collapse disorder is entirely due to neonicotinoid pesticides are overlooking some things. For one thing, it's been happening for a long time:

It gets even better: in both 2007 and 2009 another paper pointed out that there were at least 18 historical episodes of similar large-scale losses of honey bees dating back to 1869, at least several of which had symptoms similar enough that they cannot be ruled out as being the exact same ailment. Yet, how often have you seen any of the scientists and journalists and beekeepers acknowledging that any theories about the cause of CCD need to accommodate the evidence for similar bee crashes that pre-date neonicotinoid pesticides, high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), migratory beekeeping, cell phones, genetically modified crops, or any of the other human-made “causes” that have been run up the proverbial flagpole? (emphasis in original)

Don't misunderstand: neonicotinoids are not doing the bees any favors, and bees would be better off if we stopped using neonicotinoid pesticides. But that's not enough to end colony collapse disorder. More things are happening than just pesticides.

3) Modernfarmer.com has a post called "Searching for OJ's Killer" that's an interesting read, if you've been longing to learn more about citrus greening (huanglongbing) since the last time I mentioned it. Among the things I learned: there's a virus that affects citrus plants that's been named "Tristeza" ("sadness" in Portuguese), which is surely in the running for the most appropriate plant-virus name ever.

Photo from voy-idea.jp.
4) New from the world of unnecessary plastic plant-related crap: The Book Vase. It's not that it's not cute -- it is -- but I look at that and think about how hard it would be to water without accidentally getting the books next to it wet and ruining them. And then I think about how there are no drainage holes. (Though at least in the photo, they're using a plant that can grow in water. The expanded clay pellets instead of potting mix is also a good call.) And then I think of algae. This just seems like more trouble than it could be worth. (Via Colossal.)


5) Finally, lest this post be completely depressing and negative,¹ I found a video I thought was cool. It's a cover of Radiohead's song "Karma Police," as performed by Tel Aviv-based musicians Rotem Shefy (vocalist) and Leat Sabbah (cellist/arranger). It took me a few listens to decide I liked it: it's very different from the original, and in spots I was like, are they parodying Middle Easterners? What's going on here?,² but it grew on me. Also the video is worth watching for the outfits alone, if you're into that sort of thing.


(Via MetaFilter.)

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¹ (This is PATSP, not The Deep Middle.)
² In short: yes, they were, at least partially. From their own description: "A satirical arrangement recorded with an exaggerated Arabic accent," though the Kickstarter page for the video also says "What seemed at first a satirical cover transformed into a full-blown multi-layered middle-eastern arrangement," (emphasis mine) implying that they consider it something else now. This sort of transformation is apparently not uncommon in the music world. The discussion of the song at MetaTalk may also be of interest, if you like to read people arguing about arguing.

Music video: Adenium Anniversary

A reader e-mailed me a link to this, and . . . whoa. I don't understand a lot of what's going on, of course, not speaking Thai Korean. I don't think the music is related to the Adeniums, though I'm charmed by the idea that it might be. (The world needs more plant-themed dance pop.) But this is part of how Siam Adenium (WARNING: website has freaked out one reader's antivirus software, and contains autoplaying video and audio) has chosen to market themselves on-line.



I'm not entirely clear what anniversary this is supposed to commemorate; the website hints that it's the 8th anniversary of something, presumably the founding of the business? I suppose it's not important.

You know what, though: this makes me sort of want to try Adeniums again. Some of the stuff in the video is pretty awesome. The website is even worse: they've got Adeniums that appear to be about 10 feet (3 m) tall, they have "standard" forms with a crown of foliage sitting on a long, bare trunk, they have crested Adeniums, variegated Adeniums, Adenium seeds, fragrant Adeniums, doubled Adeniums, bonsai Adeniums, just everything. I didn't think there was anything that could get me to try Adeniums again, but the website might actually have done it.

And it gets worse. There's an Aglaonema page, which has me biting my knuckles in envy. Green ones, white ones, black, red, pink, contrasting midrib, contrasting veins, contrasting margin, spotted -- it's a little overwhelming. I kind of just want all of them. Though I already wanted to own all the Aglaonemas; this is just a reminder.

I don't know what the company is actually like to deal with, and there appears to be a minimum order on at least some products, so buyer beware, but they certainly do have plants I would want, if I had money and weren't trying to cut down on the number of plants I have to take care of and had space to keep more plants and had a dedicated staff of plant-waterers and so forth. Perhaps someday.

Music Video: Titus Jones "Dance Alarm" (Nicki Minaj / Eminem / Britney Spears / Dev / Taio Cruz / Lady Gaga / Owl City / Carly Rae Jepsen / Cascada / Avicii / Etta James)

So Titus Jones has a new "album"¹ out, as of last Friday. I haven't had a lot of opportunities to listen to it yet, so I'm not sure which tracks, if any, will turn out to be my favorites, but this looks like it'll be one of them.² Conveniently enough, this is also the only one for which a video has been made.

The video is a little . . . much, just to warn you.³



That was a pretty representative bit of the album as a whole, so if you liked that, you'll probably want to download the whole thing from Titus Jones' site. (It's free.)

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¹ Does the word "album" still mean anything? Discuss.
² "Close to Blowin' in the Deep" is also an early favorite, as is "I Wanna Believe in Fire Love." It's possible that I may just like Adele.
³ Hell, Nicki Minaj's outfits alone probably qualify the video for "a little much" status, never mind all the strobe-light editing and effects and shit.
I suppose that puts the video as a whole somewhere in the "way the hell too much" category.
Perhaps I'm just getting old: I was warned that this sort of thing would happen.

Music Video: Mendelssohn, String Octet in E-Flat Major, Opus 20, 3rd Movement

I think I found this via MetaFilter, but don't remember for sure.

The piece is written for four violins (reds and oranges), two violas (yellow-green and green), and two cellos (blue and purple). Saith Wikipedia:

Felix Mendelssohn's Octet in E-flat major, Op. 20 was composed in the autumn of 1825 (completed on October 15)[1] , when the composer was 16. He wrote it as a birthday gift for his friend and violin teacher Eduard Rietz (born October 17, 1802); it was slightly revised in 1832 before the first public performance on 30 January 1836 at the Leipzig Gewandhaus.[2]

The person who did the visualization has over a hundred other videos on YouTube which do the same thing (sometimes in a different format), covering pieces by Beethoven, Bach, Satie, Debussy, Chopin, Vivaldi, and so if you liked this, you might also like those.

Music video: Bad Lip Reading "Time to Rock"

Hooray! There's a new Bad Lip Reading video!

The original song, "Hot Problems," would be catchy except that no one present can sing; you can find it here. There is a significantly more palatable acoustic version here, though it's sung by a guy so it comes across as pretty but a little nonsensical.

But if you objected to nonsensical, I suppose you wouldn't be reading this post in the first place, so whatever.

Music video: FAROFF "Orinoco is in the Heart" (Enya / Dee-Lite mashup)

Continuing the trend of posting mashups from unlikely artist combinations (previously: Celine Dion / Radiohead; Justin Bieber / Slipknot), we have "Orinoco is in the Heart."

Enya doesn't get mashed up very often: I'm not sure if this is because it's technically difficult or because nobody cares enough about Enya to try. But I have a huge soft spot for Dee-Lite, so I'll blog pretty much anything anybody does with them. (I should look again for the mashup that got me interested in mashups to begin with: it was the instrumental from Dee-Lite's "Groove is in the Heart" combined with the vocals from Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun," and it was awesome, but I've never been able to find a video.)

Anyway.

Music video: Isosine "Psychosocial Baby" (Justin Bieber / Ludacris / Slipknot mashup)

This was put on YouTube in March, but I'm only finding out about it now.

I don't know that I like it exactly.

Frankly, I'm not sure what the hell I think of it, but -- it's definitely the acme of whatever the fuck it is.

It's also a fairly good example, I'm pretty sure, of a mashup being significantly better than either of the component tracks (Slipknot: "Psychosocial;" Justin Bieber feat. Ludacris: "Baby"), though more research is needed before I can say for sure. And the research would likely destroy my brain, so we will probably never know.



In case you were wondering -- and why wouldn't you be wondering? -- Slipknot's lead vocalist and lyricist Corey Taylor has heard the mashup, and approves of it.



I couldn't find any evidence on YouTube that Justin Bieber knows about the mashup, but one supposes even if he did, he probably isn't free to comment. If he says he likes it, that's bad for his squeaky-clean non-threatening boy image, and if he says he hates it, he risks the wrath of a thousand rabid Slipknot fans.

Poor Justin Bieber.

Music Video: Rappy "The Power of Creep" (Celine Dion / Radiohead mashup)

Last January was mashup month here at PATSP. I'm not necessarily planning to do that again, but I've found a couple interesting mashups floating around, so we'll do a couple, at least.

Both are extremely unlikely combinations that nevertheless manage to work. (As strange as Celine Dion and Radiohead together might be, the next mashup is even more extreme, so you have that to look forward to.)

Also notable about this one: this is one of the rare cases where the video significantly improves the experience of the song. (Be patient: it doesn't really get going until about 2 minutes in.)



 

BONUS LATE ADDITION:

Just 'cause I get sick of everybody complaining every four years about how unfair it is that Iowa gets to go first in the Presidential Caucus / Primary system when we're all a bunch of dumb conservative religious hicks with less sense than our livestock:



Relevant YouTube comment:

Iowa also was the home to the nation's first mosque. [On a technicality; read the link. -Mr. S.] Iowa consistently ranks in the top three in average SAT scores by state. [Very probably because the SATs are written and scored by Iowans, though. -Mr. S.] It's the birthplace of Norman Borlaug, the only person to be awarded both the Nobel Peace Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Oh, and Capt. James Tiberius Kirk is from there. For the uninitiated: The computer invention reference is to John Vincent Atanasoff. Oh, and Ames, Iowa has its own strain of anthrax named after it! Booyah!

(-isefire; links added by mr_subjunctive)

What's especially irritating about this is that generally the comments I see like that are coming from liberals. There was a time when progressives didn't sneer at people just for being rural. I mean, some Iowans sure as hell are dumb conservative religious hicks with less sense than livestock, but you can actually find those people in Florida / New York / California / etc. too: it's not an Iowan thing, or even a midwestern thing. Deal with your own idiots, and leave our idiots alone.

Music Video: "Chiron Beta Prime" (Jonathan Coulton, w/ ASL interpretation from Stephen Torrence)

Is today the solstice? I know it's around now, at least.

So hi. How are y'all doing? I'm okay. Sorry if I worried anybody. I really wasn't having a nervous breakdown, whatever rumors you've heard. There are much longer, whinier, more personal, and somewhat abstract (in places) explanations for the abrupt hiatus, but it really does basically condense down to, I was burned out on blogging and wanted to have time to play Sims, which I never had time to do previously. I am now seeing signs that I'm burned out on Sims, or at least approaching burn-out, so regular blogging will probably be resuming at some point in the next couple weeks. It may take me a while to work back up to daily posting, though. Like, don't expect posts in the next couple days, is what I'm saying. Among other things.

This is a video I had previously scheduled for this week, because it's holidayey without being one of the standard Christmas songs. I pretty much hate all the usual Christmas music, since 2005 or so, because of having been forced to listen to it during a retail job (and then again in 2006, in a similar but different retail job), and basically never want to hear any of those songs again in my entire life and I'm not even exaggerating. But nobody writes light jazz versions of "Chiron Beta Prime" for supermarkets, or uses it to sell toilet paper -- at least not yet -- so I approve of it.

Also I would be remiss if I neglected to mention the one semi-exception to the Christmas music hatred, this mashup of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" with The Police's "Roxanne." (And even it's not something I'd want to listen to very often.) I'm not sure the video actually improves the experience of hearing the mashup, but embedding a video is the easiest way I have of sharing music, so:



The next post will happen when it happens.

Rumble Among the Jungle, Match 4.6, Plus Bonus Music Video

Outcome of match 4.2:

For some reason, more of you voted for Philodendron hederaceum cvv. than for Aglaonema cvv. in match 4.2. I infer that this is because 56% of you are extremely high. I don't want to hear your feeble excuses; just know that I am very disappointed in you.

Philodendron wins, 64 to 51, and will face Saintpaulia cvv. in match 5.1, which will begin on 31 October.

Match 4.6
Oncidium alliance orchids (dancing ladies) vs. Sansevieria trifasciata cvv. (snake plant)

Left side, top to bottom: Beallara Marfitch 'Howard's Dream,' Oncidium Tsiku Marguerite 'NN #1.'
Center, top to bottom: Vuylstekeara Aloha Sparks 'Ruby Eyes,' Odontocidium Tiger Crow 'Golden Girl,' Wilsonara Lisa Devos.
Right side, top to bottom: Oncidium Saint Dawn Gold, Bakerara Truth 'Silver Chalice.'

Top row, L-R: Sansevieria trifasciata 'Black Coral,' 'Laurentii,' 'Bantel's Sensation.'
Center row, L-R: S. trifasciata NOID, 'Hahnii,' 'Hahnii Pearl Young.'
Bottom row, L-R: S. trifasciata 'Moonglow,' 'Black Gold.'




As a bonus (though 56% of you don't deserve it), here is a music video for the video "2012," by the group WORLD ORDER. (The main guy is apparently a retired Japanese mixed martial artist-slash-kickboxer named Genki Sudo, who writes and sings the songs, choreographs the videos, and could completely incapacitate you in 0.4 seconds using only his pinky. I only heard of him for the first time last night, so I know basically nothing about the man.)

The video is a slow build, but I suspect that it works better if you let it build, rather than skipping ahead to the big finish. (Also helpful: keeping in mind that what you're watching is choreography, not special effects. If that fails, you can watch the plants: it was filmed in Mexico and there are several plant-relevant locations.) If you're not feeling thoroughly entertained by 3:57, I will apologize to you personally. Not in person, but, you know, I can call or something.



The video (and song, actually) for "Machine Civilization" is more of the same, if you want more.

Music Video: "Russian Unicorn" (Bad Lip Reading / Michael Bublé )

I had planned to skip posting today, but then I ran into . . . this. And I, well, didn't quite know what to do with it, actually, but I'm pretty much convinced that it's my new favorite song. It's stuff like this that makes me think humans might be worthwhile after all.

Also it makes me want to get a porcupine so I can name him "Zazoom."

Possibly mildly NSFW due to toilet humor, language (barely), sexual references.

I recommend not drinking coffee while watching, just to be safe.



Here is a link to "Haven't Met You Yet," the original video, for reference purposes. Naturally WMG doesn't permit embedding of the video, 'cause heaven forfend that people be exposed to the music they're trying to sell, grumble grumble.

Yes, Michael Bublé has heard about this. He's cool with it. (I'm coming to this late -- it was posted July 11. I never promised PATSP would be bleeding-edge internet cool.)

Random plant event: Aeschynanthus spp.

I got cuttings of A. radicans via trade from a reader in May, some of which I planted as cuttings and some of which I planted as leaves.

I posted about the leaves a couple weeks ago, but now the cuttings are doing something too -- they're going to bloom. I wasn't expecting that yet, since I'd started them so recently.


The A. longicaulis is also getting ready to bloom, which is less of a surprise (it's happened before) but still a surprise (I didn't know when to expect it to happen again.).


It's also going to be less of a big deal once it happens, because the flowers -- although they're interesting; I'm not saying they're not interesting -- aren't as bright and showy on the longicaulis. (Link to previous A. longicaulis flowers post.)

Meanwhile, the A. speciosus started to flower weeks ago. (How many weeks, you ask? I'm not actually sure. Judging by the dates on the first photos I took, it looks like I first noticed in early September, so the plant must have been setting buds in mid-August?) I always enjoy this. I have trouble getting the color balance right on the camera, but the flowers are a really amazing bright orange, numerous, and reasonably long-lasting, and I discovered something else about them this time around. On Saturday, I was moving plants around for watering, and the nectar from one of the A. speciosus flowers dripped out onto my hand, so I tasted it.

Definitely sweet, though not much of any other flavor to it. Basically just sugar water.¹ I can see why birds would like it, though.


It's unclear whether I'm going to get an opportunity to cross-pollinate any of these, or whether that's even chromosomally possible, but I intend to try, mostly out of curiosity about what I'd get if it worked.

So far, the one holdout is A. 'Thai Pink,' which isn't showing any signs of buds. It also hasn't seemed to be entirely happy here, though -- a few individual plants within the pot have died -- so maybe it's not going to.

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¹ Link is only tangentially-related. Check out the video for "Know Your Chicken" too, while you're there: it has a certain WTF-ness that I appreciate.

Music Video: Overdub "Five Step" (Radiohead / Dave Brubeck)

Found this when I went looking for music in 5/4 time. (Why was I looking for music in 5/4 time, you might ask? I don't remember.) It had somehow never occurred to me that "Fifteen Steps" (the Radiohead contribution) might feel odd and jerky because it was in an unusual time signature, or that "Take Five" might be so named because of its unusual time signature (also 5/4).



But then, there are lots of things I haven't gotten around to wondering about yet. I'm a busy guy, with limited wondering capabilities.

As a bonus musical selection -- and I realize many of you will have seen this already -- Alanis Morissette's cover of the Black Eyed Peas' "My Humps" is still a thing of beauty, four and a half years later:

Music video: Weird Al Yankovic "Perform This Way"

In case anyone thought that Lady Gaga was unparodyable. (Almost, but Weird Al manages it.)



(I kind of love the octopus / Taj Mahal outfit.)

Music Video: Wax Audio "I'm in Love With Judas Priest" (Lady Gaga / Judas Priest)

I'm on the verge of taking back everything nice I ever said about Lady Gaga -- I loved "Bad Romance" (and still do, pretty much), and I don't hate "Telephone" (but I don't love it either), but all the singles since then¹ have been . . . well, I sort of feel like she's both trying too hard and like she's not trying hard enough. Like, she's working very hard to be shocking without actually doing anything, y'know, shocking. I mean, this is 2011: it's not enough anymore to go onstage, feign masturbation with a crucifix and call it a day: you have to put in some effort.²

Also. "Judas" particularly annoyed me, because it was not only too long by half,³ it was sort of deliberately harsh-sounding, and it's constructed almost identically to "Bad Romance."⁴ Plus there's the usual hodgepodge of religious references that don't add up to anything coherent, as last seen in "Alejandro" and "Born This Way," which, again, Madonna got there first.

She can't really be out of ideas already, can she?⁵



Anyway. So I was sort of surprised that I like this mash-up, because Judas Priest has most of these same problems, but it actually kind of works for me, because it smooths over the lurchiness of "Judas" and makes "Painkiller" (the Judas Priest song) a little bit poppier. Plus I think the whole "I'm in love with Judas (PRIEST!), Judas" bit is a clever bit of editing. Doesn't really make me like either original song any more than I did, and I'm not saying this is the pinnacle of artistic achievement in our time, but this mashup sort of takes the piss out of both songs, so I approve of the combination. If that makes any sense.

-

¹ ("Alejandro," "Born This Way," "Judas," "The Edge of Glory")
² To the best of my knowledge, Gaga hasn't even done that much: Madonna did, not quite twenty years ago. I will grant Gaga some shock points for the meat dress she wore to the MTV Video Music Awards, but that was last September.
³ It sort of sounds to me like she took the bridges from five or six different songs and threw them all together without even trying to make them flow naturally into one another.
⁴ The "oooh oooh oooh I'm in love with Judas" is an awful lot like the "whoa-oh-oh-oh-ooooooh, oh-oh-oh-oh, oh, oh, caught in a bad romance;" the "Judah, Judah-ah-ah" at the beginning is more or less interchangeable with "Rah rah, ah-ah-ah, Rama, rama-ma, Gaga, oh-la-la." I don't mind some nonsense syllables in my pop music, but Gaga could branch out, try some other vowels.
The actual melody of the chorus isn't the same as with "Bad Romance," but they're similar enough that when I get one song stuck in my head now, it flows back and forth to the other one -- it's like "I'm just a holy fool / Oh baby, he's so cruel / But I'm still in love with Judas, baby / whoa-oh-oh-oh-ooooooh, oh-oh-oh-oh, oh, oh, caught in a bad romance," lather rinse repeat.
⁵ (Feel free to use the comments to tell me how you never liked her in the first place, 'cause I know some of you must be dying to.)

Music Video: Titus Jones "College is Crazy" (Britney Spears / Beyonce / Jay-Z / Gnarls Barkley / Asher Roth)

I'm a little bit troubled by how much I like this one.

Titus Jones (of "I Wanna Bulletproof Dancer" and "Good Girls Burn Miami") has done a whole album, Culture Shock (available for download at his website), and of the two Culture Shock songs for which there are videos so far, this is my favorite. It's also one of my four favorite tracks on the album overall (the other three being "Oops I Shot Jolene's Mom," "Pokestar," and "We Love Hustling Drugs"). I cannot figure out why I like it, though; Asher Roth, around whom the rest of the mix seems to be constructed, strikes me as being sort of aggressively and pointedly douchey, the sort of person I would go out of my way to avoid, particularly in the bridge. And yet.¹



It might be that I'm liking the way the other songs (esp. the Gnarls Barkley) comment on and partly undercut the Asher Roth. I don't know.

Titus Jones, by the way, will do mixes for hire.² Were I to win the lottery or something, I think one of the first things I would do would be to contact Mr. Jones and buy a 4-5 minute mashup of the following songs:

"Baby" (Justin Bieber)
"Baby Baby" (Amy Grant)
"Baby Baby Baby" (TLC)
"Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby" (R. Kelly)
"Say Baby" (David Garza)³

Might be one of those things that would turn out more clever than good,⁴ but if anybody could spin that mostly-shitty straw into gold, it'd be Titus Jones.

Anyway. When there's a video for "Oops I Shot Jolene's Mom," I'll post about that, too. That'll probably be a shorter post, though.

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¹ There's also the issue of the word "crazy" being repeated over and over. Mental illness advocates, and some people with mental illness, don't like this kind of thing. The word "crazy," they say, is used to stigmatize, ignore, and demean those with mental illnesses, and using it to mean "more extreme than anticipated" or "uncharacteristic" is somehow likewise demeaning to the mentally ill. I can sort of almost see the point, but I think the logic is flawed: I think watering down a slur by giving it additional meanings is the best possible way to take away the sting. Insisting that people not use the word because it upsets you only gives people more power and incentive to upset you by using it, particularly if the word has become essentially meaningless. (Like for example "fucking:" a "fucking good party" is basically the same as a "crazy good party," and in both cases, the only purpose the words "fucking" and "crazy" serve is to intensify the description and convey an attitude. They're not interchangeable in all situations, though: "You're crazy" is obviously not the same thing as "You're fucking.")
No doubt some could make counterarguments, but that's not even really the point: my point is that although some people would be upset by how many times "crazy" is used in the mashup, I'm not one of those people. I have cut certain words from my vocabulary because of arguments like the above ("lame," "retarded," "bitchy" -- though "totally bitchin' Camaro" is still acceptable), but I'm keeping "crazy." I'm not trying to be an asshole, but it's crazy fucking useful.
² Though they're pricey: the cheapest option is a mashup of three songs to make a new song under two minutes long, and that costs $50.
³ A song which is not on YouTube (except in a really crappy live version) but worth looking for -- I like the whole album Overdub, actually -- and which is primarily about how in order to get played on the radio, one has to write songs that "don't forget to say baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby." I heard the song on the radio about nine years ago, so obviously it worked.
⁴ I haven't even heard the R. Kelly song: I'm only using it because it was the only song title I could find with more than three "Baby"s. (Oh. Wait. Now I've heard it. Well, maybe Jones could do something with it anyway.)

Music Video: DJ Fox "Come See About Down" (Supremes / Jay Sean)

I really like the way these go together musically and thematically.

Less fond of the video, but if I were to put together a mix tape of mash-ups I like, this would probably be on it.

Not that people still make mix tapes. But you know what I mean.

Music Video: "A & E" (Goldfrapp)

The video is sort of plant-related in an amusing way, so I think this counts.

I would have posted this a long time ago -- I've liked the song for months -- but I didn't run into an embeddable copy of it on YouTube until last week.

"A & E" (Accident and Emergency) is the UK equivalent of U.S. "Emergency Room."


Lyrics (as best as I can figure them out):

It's a blue, bright blue Saturday, hey hey
and the pain has started to slip away, hey hey

I'm in a backless dress,
on a pastel ward,
that's[?] shining.
Think I want you still,
but it may be pills at work.

Do ya really wanna know
how I was dancing on the floor?
I was trying to phone you
when I'm crawling out the door.
I'm amazed at you,
the things you say that you don't do --
why don't you ring?

I was feeling lonely,
feeling blue,
feeling like I needed you,
and I've[?] woken up
surrounded by the
A&E.

It's a blue, bright blue Saturday, hey hey
and the pain has started to slip away, hey hey

I'm in a backless dress,
on a pastel ward,
that's[?] shining.
Think I want you still,
but it may be pills at work.

How did I get to
accident-emergency?
All I wanted was you
to take me out.

I was feeling lonely,
feeling blue,
feeling like I needed you;
I hoped you'd call,
I hoped you'd see the [?]
A+E