thingsappleisworthmorethan:

Via @TheArmoTrader:

Corporations will pay a total of $247.2 billion in state, local and federal income tax this year. 

roaweb:

ZARAGOZA

5°ASALTO MURAL PAINTING FESTIVAL

handsomeyoungstranger:

10. Irish music in 2011 (How to win friends and influence people)

Everything above was released in 2011 and is interesting, worth listening to, and Irish. I’m hoping that things I’ve written count for more by way of endorsement than a photo of stuff does, but it’s a helpful illustration: another ton of interesting, independent music has come out of Ireland in the last year, and it seems set to continue. Which is great.

The lack of discourse around it isn’t great, though, and it’s making me uneasy. Ideally, the music comes first and it’s Irish second, but not all of it reaches a critical audience beyond Ireland. Within Ireland, the culture of music writing (about Irish music) is dominated by the news cycle, by streams and releases and synopses. There’s exceptions, and sometimes there’s even good exceptions - it would be rude not to single out Those Geese Were Stupefied, especially Karl’s Interview Project as a whole - but there’s an awful lot of “here’s this, and it’s good”.

“Here’s this, and it’s good” serves the bands pretty well (and the bands are nice and will often link back), and the news cycle is a useful service to listeners, but it’s more like PR than music writing and when there’s music actually worth further consideration, it’s really selling it short. (The print media reviews are fine, but necessarily short, and though there are some good interviews with musicians, that too is coming from the band side more than the critical, so it’s not enough by itself.) ‘Curation’ is bullshit, angry-making bullshit that needs to stop - it’s an actual discipline and implies a level of research, interpretation, adaptation of the method of presentation, and cultural preservation, not just picking a series of things you like.

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with the news cycle - it’s being done well and it’s popular for a reason - but it’s not enough on its own. I’m not sure where it’ll come from, but 2012 needs to bring some longer writing and deeper reviews.

—

CDs:

Seeping Into Cinemas - 100,000 Times

The Former Soviet Republic - The Former Soviet Republic Is Made Of This

Big Monster Love - Game Over

Land Lovers - Confidants

Goodly Thousands - s/t EP

Rhino Magic - Get Going

Popical Island #2

Cassettes:

Porn on Vinyl - Old Folks’ Home

Catscars/Test House - double split EP (Test House are from Brooklyn)

Charles Hurts - s/t mini-album

Quompilation #1 (#2 incoming)

Patrick Kelleher/School Tour - double split EP

The #1s - Italia ‘90

Tieranniesaur - Tieranniesaur!

7”:

Patrick Kelleher & Squarehead - Attention To Detail/Just A Tragedy

The Last Sound - Only The Lonely Know The Glow Is Failing/Turbochant

We Are Losers - Sunset Song b/w Cheerleader

Enemies - Coco et Moi (RSD 2011)

Squarehead - Midnight Enchilada

12”:

Girls Names - Dead To Me

Patrick Kelleher and His Cold Dead Hands - Golden Syrup

Sea Pinks - Peripheral Vision EP

Sea Pinks - Dead Seas

Squarehead - Yeah Nothing

(Notable things-I-only-have-digitally omissions: Ginnels, Hello Moon, ▲▲Last Days of 1984▲▲.)

—

20x2011 is an unordered list of things about music in 2011. (Incidentally, ‘Irish’ above is intended in a 32-county, Northern-and-Republic-of sense.)

pdsmith:

Rooftop airport, by Paul Frank, Amazing Stories (1928).

More (Ptak). [via @UnlikelyWorlds] 

asada0:

Japanease version

The other day, I experienced the “Color Vision Experience Room” at the event of the Hokkaido Color Universal Design Organization (HCUDO), where I had invited to speak. The event’s main objective was to educate the public about the diversity of color vision which exists in…