Fortune for a Quarter - I Love Quarters!

Today my fortune cookie read: “Now is a good time to expand your repertoire of skills and knowledge”

::Fasts forward to:: having not expanded a damn thing since I opened and ate this cookie two months ago, please ponder the expiration date of predictions. Short-term? Lifelong? Neverdontbelievethesethingstheyrestupid?

In a classic which-came-first-the-chicken-or-the-egg scenario, please ponder the balance this small paper holds between the function and number keys on the keyboard and ask yourself does this fortune come true for you or do you come true for it?

Expand my horizons. Criticism or jealousy? Hard to tell being that you’ve sucked yourself into a black hole of poorly rated reality television and microwaving leftover cheeseburgers, “expand[ing] your repertoire of skills and knowledge” is daunting, is it not? Shit, you mean, I…I have to do something about something?

I shit you not.

Had you known that choosing noodles for dinner would cause so much internal conflict, do you now regret your past choices, mymyhowtheykeepyouupatnight! and go back and change things now that hingsight is 20/20 and thus make you, what you think, is better off than you are now?

I am not young enough to know everything Oscar Wilde said and you’re clearly old enough to underestimate yourself enough that this “repertoire” of yours will get no expanding.

Had you known that these fortunes mean nothing ordothey? could you have done so fine a job turning it into free therapy?

- r

Dual Diner Delights

Where Passaic Street meets Hackensack Avenue. Home to one slider burger mini palace – White Manna.
Rivaling it’s former sister location in Jersey City – a single “n’d” moniker of the same name - what began as a stand at the 1939 New York World’s Fair morphed into a 15x30' slice of vintage diner heaven.
A single whiff into an invisible fog of burger grease carries you to a half-moon shaped counter overlooking the cook who slaps down meatball-sized ground chuck beef onto a sizzling griddle.
Flattening the meat with a few slaps of the back of a spatula, the meat is topped with thinly sliced onions and American cheese - according to preference - and nestled into small potato rolls. No orders are ever written down at Manna, nor forgotten, where a single cook often manages over a dozen burgers on one tiny griddle at once. Served up on paper-thin plates, these burgers pack flavor, juiciness and originality that only White Manna can bring you.
Add a side of fries (with cheese!) fountain soda (coke,please!)pile on ketchup and pickles and take your first bite towards burger nirvana.



White Manna
385 Hackensack Avenue
Hackensack
201-342-0914

- r

Appara(n)t...

In 2006 we had the first full-length collaboration by two great techno/electro artists. Both from the techno capital of the world Berlin, Germany. We know them as Ellen Allien and Apparat. On that album we knew them as the 'Orchestra of Bubbles'. The single "Way Out" featuring vocals provided by Allien herself was a great departure from the typical electro sound. My favorite track on the album, "Rotary", has a sample that sounds like the the machine that would grab you in the Sonic pinball game for Genesis. That alone had be hooked.



Now Apparat and Allien are focusing on their solo projects. "Walls", Apparat's 2007 release is available to listen to on MySpace right now. Even though I loved his previous releases this one takes the cake. It's a more relaxed approach than the last two albums. See for yourself here.


Since I started talking about people featured on Bpitch Control I might as well fill you in on the new album coming out by another Bpitch member, or should I say members. ModeSelektor has a new release titled "Happy Birthday!" set for a September 2007. These guys are just as good as Apparat, I might go as far as to say they are better. I said might, but I won't. The album features, Apparat, TTC, Maximo Park, and the great Thom Yorke. I guarantee it will be amazing. If you want to hear a 45 second mash-up of the whole album go to their Myspace page.



Talk about run on post. I might as well add that Jahcoozi is one of my favorite groups also featured on the label. Check out their Myspace and the track BLN. You WILL fall in love.

- Sey

50 Years and 28 Days Later...

Sunshine is the newest movie from director Danny Boyle. The director of the zombie-filled "28 Days Later" and gritty drug induced "Trainspotting". Boyle has a great way of taking characters and making you fall in love with them one moment and hate them the next. You will be screaming at the screen, "No, don't!", "Behind you!", or "AHH, ZOMBIE!". Well, not so much about the zombies, but you get what I am saying.

The sci-fi flick picks up 50 years from present day. The Sun is dying and the only thing we can do to stop it is to throw a bomb into it. God bless America! A team of scientists and astronauts are sent into space to bring life to the sun. The mission fails on flight Icarus1 and a second convoy, Icarus2 is sent to finish the job 7 years later. On the way to the sun the crew encounter a few problems a long the way resulting in repairs on the outside of the shuttle, and basic human nature within the ship. Cillian Murphy also returns in this Sci-fi adventure.

I thought the movie was amazing. From start to finish I couldn't really gauge if this was going to turn out well in the end. Don't worry I won't spoil it for you. Go check it out now while it's still in theaters. It's no Rush Hour 3 so it won't be in theaters long.

The picture to the right was taken from the sunshine website dedicated to documenting everything that went into the movie. Pictures from NASA of the sun like the one here and the struggle the crew had to go through training for the movie.

Go here to watch the trailer and get your mind-blown.

- Sey

Bergman and Antonioni...

To find a great director whose career you can follow from start to end with no mistakes is very difficult. Directors who can basically define an era of film and set the precedent for many to come. Then to have two directors with those backgrounds leave us on the same day is very unfortunate.

Ingmar Bergman (July 14, 1918 - July 30, 2007) 89-year-old Swedish director well known for is 1957 movie "The Seventh Seal", and Michelangelo Antonioni (September 29, 1912 - July 30, 2007) 94-year old Italian film director left us July 30, 2007.

Both directors had great success, but still struggled in their old age for recognition. Bergman's last movie was directed in 2003, but still strayed from his directing habits. Antonioni's last was in 2004, but was not well-received.

Bergman's great style inspired many directors over his 60 year run in film. One of these directors shared a very close connection with him. Time magazine had an interview with Allen on his thoughts of this sorrowful day in film history. Netflix em kids!

Interview with Woody Allen on both directors, from Time magazine.

- Sey

R•T•B rains over N•Y•C

The birthplace of hip-hop hosted two days of Rock the Bells on Randall’s Island July 28&29. Here’s a re-cap of the politically-charged and marijuana-at-large ten-hour festival:


Day attended• 29

Weather• Cloudy, breezy and a chance of soaking wet from rain with no shelter in sight for five straight hours.

Audioslave who?• Rage Against the Machine just came off of a seven-year hiatus? Couldn’t tell from that performance.
Set list included: Testify, Killing in the Name, Freedom, People of the Sun and Vietnow.

Most prized piece of “free shit”• The towel from the “be the next rap superstar” sweepstakes booth for drying off. Well, after three wipe downs.. smearing the water around your body is more like it

Yeeeaaahhhh Bbbboooyyy• Flavor Flav was the sole performer that treated the crowd to a feel. Also, Scott Ian of Anthrax joined him, Chuck D and the rest of Public Enemy for “Bring Tha Noise”
Set list included: 911 is a Joke, Public Enemy No. 1, Don’t Believe the Hype

Can you ssssaaayyy contact high?• B-real of Cypress Hill, who clearly smoked the fattest spliff in the place [on stage] also helped a band mate take a hit from a 4ft bong. Also add: 80 percent of the 35,000 fans who joined him. They also get best stage prop for the 25ft high gold blow up Buddha holding a pot leaf.
Set list included• Hand on the Pump, Ain’t Goin’ Out like That, Insane in the Membrane, Dr. Greenthumb

Most participated audience hand gesture• The “W” symbol for Wu-Tang Clan
Set list included: CREAM, Shimmy Shimmy Ya, Wu-tang Clan Ain’t Nothin’ Ta Fuck With, Method Man

Best beat box• Rahzel, who co-hosted the festival along with Supernatural and Hi-Tek, delivered “If your mother only knew” where he beat boxed AND sang at the same time.

Best graphic tee sold•

- r

Under Construction

Don't mind our appearance. But you can mind yours for us. At least just for a couple of days. Is anyone even reading this bullshit? Not me! OK maybe a little bit.

Hardboiled

Hardboiled crime fiction refers to a literary style pioneered by Dashiell Hammett in the late 1920s and refined by Raymond Chandler beginning in the late 1930s. Hardboiled fiction, most commonly associated with detective stories, is distinguished by an unsentimental portrayal of crime, violence, and sex. From its earliest days, hardboiled fiction was published in and closely associated with so-called pulp magazines. Later, many hardboiled novels were published by houses specializing in paperback originals, also colloquially known as "pulps." Consequently, "pulp fiction" is often used as a synonym for hardboiled crime fiction. The name comes from a colloquial phrase of understatement. For an egg, to be hardboiled is to be comparatively tough.

-?m

Geometry

Geometry (Greek γεωμετρία; geo = earth, metria = measure) is a part of mathematics concerned with questions of size, shape, and relative position of figures and with properties of space. Geometry is one of the oldest sciences. Initially a body of practical knowledge concerning lengths, areas, and volumes, in the third century B.C. geometry was put into an axiomatic form by Euclid, whose treatment set a standard for many centuries to follow. Astronomy served as an important source of geometric problems during the next one and a half millenia.

-?m

. . .

just a jacknife – a sound twist, but firm, and life here through a looking glass much sweeter decapitating empty alibis rather than the sea swell that drank the last pure drops of my soul.

- r