Diversions Manifold

Staatsfeind Wikileaks - "Wikileaks - Enemy of the State" - published in January 2011 by two journalists (Marcel Rosenbach and Holger Stark from Der Spiegel ) who followed Julian Assange during the tumultuous year of Wikileaks "revelations" and exposures throughout 2010 is one of those perplexing "history of now" books Reading the book (a Christmas present from my brother in law) now, especially the introductory paragraphs, feels strangely hollow, as if there's a large, NSA and Edward Snowden-sized gap in the story being told. Conversely, today there seems to be a Wikileaks and Assange-sized gap in the news - though it's a gap nobody appears to miss very much. I'm only at the beginning of Staatsfeind Wikileaks and, despite a noticeable editorial miss (unless I've missed a large Australian city called "Syndey"), it's shaping up to be an interesting read. It has flowed fairly chronologically so far, describing an unusual,

The "Albums of the Year" articles are trickling in, including this one from the Guardian on Daft Punk's Random Access Memories. In it, there's a wonderful quote that really hits the mark on how I feel about the album - originally from  Sasha Frere-Jones in the NYT :  "The duo has become so good at making records that I replay parts of Random Access Memories repeatedly while simultaneously thinking it is some of the worst music I've ever heard … This record raises a radical question: does good music need to be good?" This hits home on the interplay between composition and production / performance, a wonderfully delicate balance. Of course, a terrible performance can wreck even the best composition - but for me, it's better to find nuggets of a great composition in the rubble of a poor performance than to be able to appreciate an amazing performance of dross. André Rieu and Daft Punk on the same side of the spectrum? Harsh, but one to think abou