The Arcade Fire just released a new video for their song We Used to Wait.  The video was written and directed by Chris Milk in conjunction with a team at Google using the new HTML 5 web standard – which is worth noting because all of the interactive elements of the video are displayed without the use of plug-ins.  It’s cool to see the power of HTML 5 through an artistic lens.

Before the video beings it prompts you to enter the address of the home you grew up in and then it generates a unique video for you to enjoy.  Awesome idea, well executed.

Although the Glico Morinaga Case involves a kidnapping, some extortion, a bit of (humorous/not intended to hurt people) poisoning and lots of mass hysteria – which are all less-than-morally-righteous things to do – the case stands as an example of the influence that a single person (or a small group) can have on a large corporation if they are willing to act outside of the law.

The Monster with 21 Faces sent its first letter on May 10, 1984, to the giant food company Ezaki Glico following the kidnapping and escape of Katsuhisa Ezaki, president of Glico. The letter stated that it had laced the company’s confections with potassium cyanide soda, and it later threatened to put them on store shelves. None of these poisoned candies were found, but Glico products were removed from stores, resulting in a loss of more than $21 million and the laying off of 450 part-time workers.

Meanwhile, The Monster with 21 Faces also sent letters to the media, taunting police efforts to capture the culprit(s) behind the scare. An excerpt from one such letter, written in hiragana and with anOsaka dialect, reads, “Dear dumb police officers. Don’t tell a lie. All crimes begin with a lie as we say in Japan. Don’t you know that?” Another taunting letter was sent to Koshien police station. “Why don’t you keep it to yourself? You seem to be at a loss. So why not let us help you? We’ll give you a clue. We entered the factory by the front gate. The typewriter we used is PAN-writer. The plastic container used was a piece of street garbage. Monster with 21 faces.”^[3]

On June 26, The Monster with 21 Faces issued a message proclaiming its forgiveness of Glico, and subsequent harassment of the company ceased. However, it began targeting Morinaga, another confectionery company, and food companies Marudai Ham and House Food Corporation with similar criminal campaigns, using the same alias.

In October 1984, a letter addressed to “Moms of the Nation” and signed by The Monster with 21 Faces was sent to Osaka news agencies with a warning similar to those sent to Glico. It stated that 20 packages of Morinaga candy had been laced with deadly sodium cyanide. After receiving this letter, police searched stores in cities from Tokyo to western Japan and found over a dozen lethal packages of Morinaga Choco Balls and Angel Pie before anyone was poisoned.^[4] These packages had labels, such as “Danger: Contains Toxins”, put on them. More tampered confections were found in February 1985, making a total of 21 lethal sweet products.^[5]

via The Monster With 21 Faces wiki entry.

Unfortunately the Monster with 21 faces was not defying authority for some noble cause – he, she or they – were just being greedy assholes and trying to extort money from a mega-corporate candy company.  But still, the impact that the monster made is astonishing.

This is my favorite wikipedia entry ever :::  Hugh Glass

Cliffs:  An american fur trapper stumbles upon a mother grizzly bear and her two cubs, is attacked but manages to kill the grizzly with a knife.  His companions leave him for dead.  When he regains consciousness he’s badly injured, alone in the middle of enemy Indian territory and without weapons or equipment.  His trek back to civilization takes 6 weeks and is filled with danger.  After his recovery he sets off on a journey to track down his companions and avenge himself.

Just a little taste of how much of a badass this guy was:

Despite his injuries, Glass regained consciousness. He did so only to find himself abandoned, without weapons or equipment, suffering from a broken leg, the cuts on his back exposing bare ribs, and all his wounds festering. Glass lay mutilated and alone, more than 200 mi (320 km) from the nearest settlement at Fort Kiowa on the Missouri.

In one of the more remarkable treks known to history, Glass set his own leg, wrapped himself in the bear hide his companions had placed over him as a shroud, and began crawling. To preventgangrene, Glass laid his wounded back on a rotting log and let the maggots eat the dead flesh.

It’s funny just how boring the internet becomes when you can’t watch videos/download music/stream anything.  I’m stuck tethering through my cell phone until Friday when Comcast will finally come and plug me into the real deal.  Since I haven’t been able to view all of the above, I’ve been reading a bunch of random articles.

+ Who knew that James Franco is such an interesting dude?

-  He’s doing a performance art piece that involves him playing a character on the daytime soap opera General Hospital.

Franco’s General Hospital character is a transparent soap-world portrait of Franco himself: a dashing multimedia artist (graffiti, photography, performance art) named “Franco” who sweeps into town and fascinates, angers, seduces, and generally confuses everyone around him. Like Franco, “Franco” is obsessed with art that crosses over into reality: He re-creates, in galleries, actual crime scenes—until eventually the people of Port Charles come to suspect that he might be a murderer himself.

-  He is currently enrolled in 4 graduate school programs and will be attending Yale for his Ph.D.

+ A gene therapy gel that heals wounds 6 times faster than normal and a nano-tech tea bag that filters heavily polluted water and only costs half a cent to produce.

+ The Touche Amore/La Dispute split is soooooooooooooo good.  Both of those bands deserve the success that has/will come to them.  Download it HERE.

+  Pianos is streaming a new song on Absolute Punk from the split we’re releasing with The Saddest Landscape (who are currently taking pre-orders for their new album “you will not survive”!!!)

+  Andy was kind enough to post a short blog about what’s taking so long with the splits.  We apologize to anyone who pre-ordered.

+  And finally, tomorrow we leave for a short 4 day tour with our friends Touche Amore.  Dates are posted HERE.  Come hang!

+ Mount Eerie – Dawn

Download: Mount Eerie – Dawn

This is one of those albums that I have to be in a particular mood to listen to.  Somber may be the right word.  Not particularly unhappy but just kind of meh.  This is an album that focuses on the overall mood of the record instead of hooks and crescendos.  Good stuff.

Here’s a snippet from a reviewer who hit’s the nail on the head:

On “I Say ‘No’,” Elverum sings: “I close my eyes/ I say nothing now/ There’s a ringing in my ear that’s faint and high/ And when I listen close to it/ It says:”Here, the song abruptly stops, and you’re left pondering what that faint ringing is saying. A few years back, he capped off a live set in Minneapolis with this peculiar ending. With uncomfortable shuffling and puzzled reactions, the audience stayed silent for what seemed like an eternity, as Elverum sat motionless, eyes closed. It was an excruciating yet delicate moment that seemed to slow everything down to a snail pace; I didn’t want it to end. The crowd eventually gave in, awkwardly, with hesitant clapping, but that moment, even in retrospect, felt beyond time.

Much like his other works, Dawn is knee-deep in mud. You can hear the seams — the out-of-tune harmonies (“Climb Over,” “Dead of Night”), misplaced notes (“We Squirm”), the rhythmic flux (“I Say ‘No’”). Elverum has always couched his worldviews in a fleetingly imprecise, ill-defined momentum — his songs don’t really sound like “songs”; they sound like versions. And they’ve always had a sort of romanticized purity, an effortless, in-the-moment construction. Perhaps that’s why you see his writing scrawled on the package when you order directly from him, or maybe why his projects are so multi-faceted and multi-layered while retaining a sense of whimsy, of unhinged creativity. The profundity is offset by capriciousness and DIY ethics.

+ A few other things I’ve been meaning to post:

Youtube Easter Egg:  Play the classic arcade game Snake while your video of a dog barfing loads.

Bill Murray gives an interview in the new GQ

I came across a blog/zine called Linebreaker which “…examines the writers that shape punk and hardcore, and gives them a voice to explain the meanings behind the lyrics we sing along to.”  So here’s a couple interviews I found interesting.

+  Defeater‘s lyricist/singer Derek Paul Archambault discusses war and the influence it had on his writing on their latest EP Lost Ground.

+  Al from Dangers makes a few sober critiques on Love and the romanticizing that goes along with it.

I have not had sexual intercourse in more than two years now.  I’ve made a good habit of entering into relationships I know won’t work out and lamenting their unavoidable demise with what can only be called “gusto.”  What I know about love I have learned mostly from Zack Morris and Kelly Kapowski, Winnie Cooper and Kevin Arnold and, ashamedly, Dawson Leery and Joey Potter.  This is, perhaps, the result of paper thin walls and the healthy, multi-cultured libido of my father figure.  I can, for instance, discern with great accuracy the pleasure groans of a Puerta Riquena and Columbiana and, to a lesser extent, the details of the love act (hole, speed, position).  What I must be saying is: a revolving door is no place for a child to play.

There was a detailed plan that I concocted at the age of seventeen.  Whatever parts of me that were capable of marriage were to wed no later than age twenty-four.  The mate was to be the bourgeoning beauty I was already at that time years-deep into.  We would get tattoos instead of rings, elope like alcoholics, and spend the wedding money on a trip up Kilimanjaro.  She was to continue her painting endeavors.  I, my music.  A child was likely, certainly no later than by age twenty-six, and his name (it was to be a he) would under no circumstances be a regurgitation of my own bloodline (see also: aforementioned paper thin walls, cocaine, feelings of abandonment, etc.).  We would buy a house, small, cottage-esque, near enough to the ocean that it would sometimes smell like dead fish, and we would teach our offspring the ways of Black Flag, Dischord Records, and, above all else, John Stuart Mill.  There would be no nanny.  Sex would be often and remarkable.  Meals home-cooked.  Traveling relentless.  Money scarce.  Hearts bursting.

Read the rest HERE.

And to stay within the theme…

+  In Helmet Social Networking: One Influential Ex-Generals’ vision of Future War

Scales isn’t one of those futurists who think technology replaces the human dimensions of war. He’s harnessing technology precisely to address some of soldiering’s most immediate and human dimensions: emotional strain.

“What does a soldier need? ‘I’m lonely,’” Scales says. “As the battlefield expands, the space between soldiers expands geometrically, and primal fear escalates. The need for psychic glue increases an order of magnitude.” Which is why he’d like to have veterans, translators, cultural experts and battle buddies all connected in a social network for war.

“Soldiers don’t break from hunger, thirst or poor leadership. They break from emotional collapse,” he says. To keep that from happening, “maybe someone far away, like [National Security Agency headquarters] Fort Meade, could monitor [troops] for emotional and biological signs — heart rate, galvanic skin response, a tremor in a soldier’s voice — and then aggregate it into a dashboard.”

Scales also believes infantry units should spend years together, instead of “sending out a pickup squad that’s broken up every 18 months.” Like football players, the various members of the unit should have specialized skills that mesh together. And like some pro athletes, those troops should practice group “visioning” — creating mental images of their wartime goals.

“Empathy,” not aggression, should be the new must-have trait of any military leader. And soldiers need to develop a respect and an affinity for foreign cultures. Scales believes current U.S. ambassador to Kabul Karl Eikenberry best personifies this comfort, which is why he calls it the “Eikenberry gene.”

It’s nice to be back home.  Yesterday was the last day of the Pianos tour.  I feel like we accomplished a lot this summer and I’m excited for what’s to come this year.

I’m typing this while hanging out in my air conditioned apartment, laying in a bed with clean sheets and resting my head on a pillow that isn’t caked with dirt and cat hair.  Life rules at the moment.

Tour is fun because of the uncertainty that goes along with it.  Not knowing what the show will be like, what kind of people you’ll encounter or where the night will end is a liberating feeling that you don’t often get to experience when you work a 9 to 5.  You are given the slightest bit of control over your daily destiny and it is up to you and your band mates to figure out how you’re going to eat, where you’re going to sleep, who’s going to drive, etc.

Which leads to my favorite aspect of touring…

The best thing about touring is the underlying sense of comradeship that your band develops because you are constantly faced with shitty situations that you have to pull together to get through.  When you are on the road with a a person who is literally within an arm’s reach most of the time you had better love that person or be prepared to have a crappy time.  After spending so much close-quarters time with these people you develop a different kind of friendship.  The power of shared experiences I guess.  Through thick and thin etc etc blahblahblah.  I’m lucky to be in a band with these people.

And, lastly, touring reminds you that there are so many genuinely kind people out there who will not hesitate to lend a helping hand.

I’m in Oklahoma City right now hanging out at our friend Leon’s apartment who we met earlier at tonight’s show.

Aside from a few minor van troubles, tour has been going well.  We only have 8 days left.  It’s weird looking back on some of the earlier shows of tour and realizing that they weren’t that long ago even though it feels like months have passed between now and then.

Since I last updated we played a couple of shows with Touche Amore – one in LA on the 4th of July and one at the Che Cafe on the 6th.  I love watching people lose their shit when a band they loves starts playing and every time I’ve seen Touche play kids lose their minds.

+ Stoked to get home and play this.

+ I’ve been really missing drinking coffee for the past month and this video/recipe from Cool Hunting is giving me a coffee boner.

+ Stoner idea comes to life: Dude lives in a house built of Legos.

+ Just found The Reptillian’s new album Full Health online.  Haven’t listened to it yet, but I expect good things based on seeing them live.  Nicest dudes.

Download The Reptillian – Full Health.

A little bit over two weeks in to tour and we’re just now arriving in California.  I have a few good videos to share once I get to an actual internet connection (I’m tethering through my phone atm) – Not to Reason Why, Kidcrash, Dead Heroes and Bone Dance.

Yesterday we had an off day in between Portland and Redding, CA so we went to the mall, ate some terrible food and watched Toy Story 3.  All of us definitely teared up at some point.  Good movie, pussy band.

+ Ryan McGinley – Entrance Romance

Ryan McGinley is that guy who creates all of the ‘teenage/early twenties rebellion photography of hipster models running through fields while the sun sets and jumping into pools of water from cliffs.  Sigur Ros used one of his photos for an album cover.  I like most of the work he puts out.

Anyway, he made a short using a camera which captures something like 10,000 frames per second which allowed him to slow down the footage and get some really detailed slo-mo shots.  I especially like the dog on girl action – was not expecting that.