tdaxp

Robert Earl Keen- Merry Christmas From The Family



Come On! Let's Boogie To The Elf Dance!

From Something Awful Photoshop Phriday, h/t to Catholicgauze

For some time I have been using this Chi-Rho emblem:

to symbolize the Christian 4GW. The original design was by James Greece of Catholic and Loving It, with a minor change by Lexington Green of Chicago Boyz.

I found the original graphic on a now-defunkt clipart page, so I am grateful to James for letting me know of the image's original location, and its use as part of his wedding services company. (As a newlywed myself, I can appreciate his work!)

As long as the subject is Christian symbolism, I also wanted to point out "It's Christmas! Let's be glad!" by Sufjan Stevens. Sufjan describes his church as "kind of Anglo-Catholic," so the Christian and Marian themes shouldn't be surprising.

Sing a carol to your mom
Because she knows what's going on
And she knows if you've been bad or good

And if you get what you deserve
To be graded on the curve
Oh, you got a lot of nerve

Listen to the song on last.fm, download from podbop, or purchase from Amazon.

True Sufjan fans may appreciate the animated YouTube video of 'Put the Lights on the Tree'.

One of the best things about YouTube are how works of art -- which otherwise would languish on their creator's computer or never be made at all -- become viral on the net. Rx's "Freedom 101" (previously featured here and by Mountainrunner, Sean, and ZenPundit), for instance, is an amazing mashup of ideology, freedom, and principle. However, the artist himself is busy running for President) and hasn't provided an mp3 on his web site. So how to listen to it on my iPod Mini 8GB?

Answer: vixy.net.

Vixy is also an open source project that converts youtube's flac format to standard ones. Until google implements a "Save As" feature for YouTube, vixy's website offers a free, fast translator supported by ad-revenue. I recommend it.

I also tried vixy on LOST breakbeat and Reggae Soviet Anthem. Both worked fine. Thanks vixy!

Death Cab for Cutie. 2005. Someday you will be loved. Plans. Lyrics available.

Sons are important. Songs are about human conflict, meaningful struggle, and often even love. Not just lust -- the mad desire for a thing -- but love -- the longing to provide goods to another that cannot be denied by anyone.

Earlier, I highlighted four songs by Guerrillas (19-2000, Clint Eastwood, Dare, and Feel Good, Inc.). Today I want to look at Someday You Will Be Loved, by Death Cab for Cutie.

"Soemday you will be loved" is about abandoning love, about the limits of what humans can give. As the Iraq War winds down, its lesson about love abandoned applies to the population who will love any hope of real love if we leave: Iraq's Sunni Arabs. For more than a year, prolonging the war has only bought them time. But for years, Sunni Arab culture, inspired by its Naser-Arafat habit of doing exactly the wrong thing, has aggravated the situation.

We will leave Iraq. There will ethnic cleansing. The Sunni Arabs will not experience love in our generation, or perhaps our lifetime. But as the global economy continues to expand, and as the Afro-Islamic Gap is eventually shrunked, someday they will be loved.

---

I once knew a girl
In the years of my youth
With eyes like the summer
All beauty and truth

Some things just keep getting better and better. The musician Rx is one of 'em.

His mashup of the Clintons and George Bush, Happy Christmas & A Whole Lot of Love, is a classic. His music video of the President singing Sunday, Bloody Sunday is clever. But nothing he has done compares to his new music video: Freedom 101.

Now all Rx has to do is link to the MP3 version, and I'm good to go!

Sean Meade very kindly emailed me full-length videos of Sufjan Stevens playing some of his works on the PBS program Austin City Limits.

• Casmir Pulaski Day


• Jacksonville


• Oh Destroit, Lift Up Your Weary Heart


• The Dress Looks Nice on You


• as well as an Interview

I also found a lower quality recording, apparently from the same event, of The Transfiguration.

Update: The audio of the entire concert is also available.

Props to Apple for iTunes 7, the first program with a 3D interface that isn't terrible.

Generally, 3D is used to increase flashiness and destroy usefulness. From numerous forgetting web browsers to games, such as Half-Life 2 and Warcraft III, designers have labored hard to make programs slower, more sluggish and less user friendly by adding the glitz of the z-axis.

Apple has bucked that trend.

iTunes 7 incorporates a nifty tool that lets you "flip" through albums on your computer, and it will even download album art off of the iTunes store if you do not have it already on your computer. Apple calls this technology "Cover Flow," and it is an easy, intuitive, and relaxing way of browsing the music you own and what you want to play next.

"The truth behind the spin?," Channel 4 News, 25 April 2005, http://www.channel4.com/news/special-reports/special-reports-storypage.jsp?id=67 (from Ektopia).

Andrew Sullivan heard of these, but they aren't official. Channel 4 created fake ads for the Labour, Conservative, and Liberal-Democrat parties.

What's That Tune reveals that the Tory soundtrack is "As You Fall" by Bent. The Labour and Lib-Dem ads are funny, but the Conservative choice is beautiful.

Postscript: Vote Labour.