Christopher Hitchens of Vanity Fair used to call waterboarding “extreme interrogation,” and not torture. He went so far as to test his convictions, and videotaped his own waterboarding. The resulting article, “Believe Me, It’s Torture,” and the accompanying video, are incredible work. There is no question about the nature of waterboarding, and our own government has prosecuted others for doing it. Yet President Bush vetoed a bill outlawing our use of waterboarding, a move that shoots past mere partisanship and stops near actual evil.
Our country has a terrible blemish on its history. I pray for forgiveness and mercy towards America for this inexcusable transgression.
This was on Digg, so some of you may have seen it, but I think it’s worth repeating here. They took the strict ingredients for pop music to recreate its end result:
This happens for all styles of music, including classical. Except for the most trained ears (not mine) it is impossible to tell whether or not recorded music reflects upon the actual skill of the musician. Right now it’s most true with vocalists, but the tools are evolving to let even the most complicated of instrumentals be edited and tweaked to the point of false perfection.
For many, this doesn’t make music any less enjoyable. After all, who cares how it was made if it sounds good? As a music listener, I don’t have huge problems with it, as I’m sure that a lot of my studio albums (if not all of them) have received such treatment. But as a musician, it feels like a disappointment. I like to appreciate artists with remarkable skills, and talented musicians are the ones who really lose out most on this “musical photoshopping”. Sure, when I record drums, I want them to sound perfect, so I don’t object to fudging a few things so that listeners don’t notice my mistakes, but that can’t be done with live music. Hearing something difficult to play on a recording is one thing, but seeing them pull it off with such precision live is another one entirely.
Here’s another point in case, just to beat a dead horse: Saosin’s “Voices” has been nagging at me for about 2 weeks now. Watch the first verse twice: first pay attention to the singer, and then the drummer.
The vocalist is considerably more annoying live- whiny and shaky on pitch. But the drummer’s beat during the verse is incredibly solid - both in recording and in live performance. That’s something that only comes with a lot of work, unlike studio tweaks.
I’m shutting up now, I’m longwinded even when I blog.
Had a blast this weekend… Went out to the band house for a big party, a lot of people turned out. Big fires, roasting stuff, N64-style Super Smash Bros, RISK lasting until about 4:00 in the morning.
The next morning I got stung in the arm by some kind of wasp. I’ve never been stung by one before, and I know that my mom is really allergic, so I don’t know what to expect. It’s over 24 hours later and I’m not dead, so I guess that’s a good sign, but the swelling didn’t really start until a whole day later. Now half of my forearm is really tender and numb, it’s weird to type or drum. But I’m not too worried, if I had my mom’s allergies I’d probably be in way worse condition.
Yesterday I went hiking with Matt and Madelyn, we got lucky and had cloud cover most of the way up to Horsetooth Rock.
Here are some pictures of the weekend… I don’t know why, but recently I haven’t been taking any pictures of people.
I'm Zeke. This is where I write about things that are important to me- this blog is here so I can get my thoughts down on paperpixels. And every once in a while, I might have some cool pictures or music to share with you. Make yourself at home! :-)
