San Diego Unseen: An Urban Portrait
Jam these pieces of pop culture into your brain
Apps: Moog Music Filtatron and Animoog
Apple’s App Store has no shortage of cheesy, musical-instrument programs that will convert your iPhone into a piano or timbales, but few have held my attention for more than three minutes. Filtratron is the exception. Created by the inventors of the Moog synthesizer, the $7.99 app is a fully functional musical tool in its own right, rather than just a cheap, digital simulacrum of the Moog synthesizer some of us inherited from our dads. I’ve spent hours at cafés, headphones jacked in, as I manipulate, sample, scratch, loop and modulate, either creating my own sounds or perverting other artists’ tracks, from Little Deadman’s “Post Helado Madness” to Roots Manuva’s “Duppy Writer.” The only problem is that it makes you want to own two iPhones, so you can mix them together, turntable style. Luckily, this fall, Moog Music released Animoog, an even classier, more versatile app exclusively for the iPad that’s available for $29.99.
—Dave Maass
Books: Retromania: pop culture’s addiction to it’s own past
A prolific music journalist and author, Simon Reynolds has written essential books on electronic music and post-punk. But his latest book, Retromania: Pop Culture’s Addiction to Its Own Past, is perhaps the British writer’s most penetrating work yet. Taking a close look at the past decade’s trends, he theorizes that pop music is more nostalgic than ever. Not only are more old bands reuniting and more reissues coming out every year, but, he writes, “Too often with new young bands, beneath their taut skin and rosy cheeks you could detect the sagging grey flesh of old ideas.” In many ways, he notes, this trend is a byproduct of the internet age: Where before you had to put more work into learning about music, with the internet you can dredge up information on the most obscure bands or download hard-to-find gems with little effort. But while Reynolds somewhat appreciates this obsession with all things retro, he’s also disturbed by its implications. “Could it be,” he writes, “that the greatest danger to the future of our music is… its past?”
—Peter Holslin
Apps: Zynga poker
The fiendish application developers at Zynga have done it to me again. First it was Words with Friends. Then along came Hanging with Friends (Scrabble and Hangman knockoffs, respectively). Now Zynga’s Poker app is eating into my free time and creeping toward obsession. And I’m not alone. At any given moment, hundreds of thousands of people around the world use the app to play poker with each other in real time. You can log in to Zynga Poker through Facebook and add your friends, so that you can send each other virtual chips and play at the same virtual table. Or you can make new friends. I’m very popular with Macedonian ladies. Who knew? The game is ridiculously addictive. “I’m not going to let this control me,” a friend confessed earlier this week. But when I logged in late at night, there he was at the tables. I’m not that bad, but just to be on the safe side, I decided to delete the app from my phone. Again.
—Jim Ruland
Dvds: Tinker tailor soldier spy /smiley’s people
The first time I tuned into The Wire, it was mid-episode, mid-season and I thought to myself, This is soooo boooorring. It was only after I restarted from the beginning that I understood the power of slow-building, deliberate storytelling. The same goes for BBC’s 1979 seven-part adaptation of John Le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, recently re-released on DVD. To the casual channel-surfer, the miniseries would seem like any other tedious period drama on PBS, but watched from beginning to end, the miniseries clamps down on you like a torturer’s vice. Alec Guinness plays George Smiley, a British spymaster pulled out of retirement to expose a mole in the Secret Service. Unlike other Cold War heroes, like James Bond or Napoleon Solo, Smiley is a modest, soft-spoken man constantly humbled by the very public knowledge that his wife is cheating on him. Smiley is no action star; he conducts his investigation through interviews and records, crafting a chronologically complex narrative as captivating as any drama I’ve ever seen. In December, a new version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy will hit theaters and possibly win Gary Oldman his overdue Oscar—but I’m more excited about getting the BBC’s 1982 sequel, Smiley’s People, for Christmas.
—Dave Maass
Apps: Waze
Traffic reports are a waste of time. And don’t even get me started on the precious morning-news minutes wasted on the local, daily surf report. If I hear “Let’s call it knee-to-waist high” one more time, I swear—. News flash: Surfers have apps and webcams where they can get better info. And for traffic-report needs, there’s Waze, a free, community-based traffic and navigation app that crowd-sources things like traffic jams, construction and even Highway Patrol sightings so that the information is real-time and useful. (Note: for safety’s sake, the app doesn’t allow you to type while driving and delivers directions by voice.) They’ve smartly included social components like groups, the ability to leave notes at specific locations and a chat feature. Plus, you earn points by reporting accidents or other traffic hazards, which makes it kind of like a fun game. For obvious reasons, the more people who actively use Waze, the better. So, get to it.
—Kinsee Morlan
Music: Invasion of the mysteron killer sounds
Jamaican dancehall is booty-shaking music, first and foremost. But over the years, the genre has been pushed in artful new directions with the help of worldly folks like British producer Kevin Martin, aka The Bug. Nowhere is that more apparent than on Invasion of the Mysteron Killer Sounds, a fantastic compilation of digital dancehall tracks put together by Martin and Soul Jazz Records head Stuart Baker. Of course, the compilation might be frustrating for some listeners who aren’t already beat-heads and dancehall queens—there aren’t any catchy melodies on this one, just lots of great beats and bass lines. Still, you have to appreciate the wide-ranging selection: The two-disc set includes forward-thinking new tracks by producers like Diplo, along with classic cuts from the ’80s and ’90s by Jamaican masters like King Tubby and Prince Jazzbo. What’s more, it comes with a thoroughly entertaining sci-fi comic book by Paolo Parisi about the travails of intergalactic Alien Sound Lord Abductors, Aural Freedom Fighters and Digi-Dub Voyagers.
—Peter Holslin
