A little July Skies for a dreary late-February day.

Backwoods-based psych-popsters Black Moth Super Rainbow will be releasing their follow-up to 2004’s Start A People (my review) on May 15, 2007 on Graveface.

Entitled Dandelion Gum, it’s “a loosely based concept record about witches who make candy in the forest”.  Which, if you’ve heard the group’s bent, broken, psychedelic, vocoderized pop sounds before—think Boards Of Canada frolicking with Neutral Milk Hotel through forest glades in the autumn twilight—makes perfect (albeit skewed) sense.

A couple tracks from Dandelion Gum, as well as upcoming tour dates, can be found on the group’s MySpace page.

• James Cameron—yes, that James Cameron—claims to have conclusive evidence that a tomb discovered in Jerusalem in 1980 is, in fact, the tomb of Jesus Christ and his family.  The Discovery Channel will be airing a special on March 4 to reveal the, um, truth.  Which, if it’s anything like their previous specials, will contain a whee bit of insight and then proceed to milk the controversy for all its worth. I wonder, could I possibly be more skeptical of the whole affair?  And I’m not the only one—other scholars are calling “B.S.” on Cameron’s little enterprise.
• Pitchfork gives the new Do Make Say Think album a 7.8: Unlike their early work, with its abrasive tangents, their fifth album is fairly seamless—it gives more and demands less from the listener, and marks DMST as a band more invested in confidently honing and perfecting their idiom than in pushing their own boundaries.
• NME is hosting “the worldwide exclusive listening post” for The Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible (login required).

I might have indicated this before, but just in case you missed it, I really, really like my iMac.  It’s been almost a year, but the machine is still as fast as ever (and that display is still as gorgeous as ever).  I sometimes wonder how much time I’ve lost in productivity due to staring at the shiny thing.

I picked up the 20” version in April of 2006, which was the largest model available at the time.  Several months later, Apple introduced a 24” version, which had me drooling afresh.  And now, there are rumors that Apple might be releasing a new 24” version, this time in black, ninja-style—which is even more drool-worthy.

Of course, as with all things Apple-related, “mum”‘s bound to be the word right up until the moment they actually release the thing (if they do, that is).  But given that Apple has released black iPods and MacBooks, it doesn’t strike me as all that implausible.

I won’t joke about how I might just be getting a new computer later this year, as I still very much like my iMac—that, and I probably won’t be able to afford a new computer for quite some time.  However, should you be looking for a new machine, I can’t recommend the iMac enough, and it’s good to see that the product is likely to continue to evolve and not be overshadowed by some of the company’s other upcoming products.

• Overstreet on Amazing Grace: ...director Michael Apted has restored my faith in the power of political action to change the world for God’s glory. And in doing so, he does something even more remarkable: he restores my faith in the ability of the big screen to portray religious characters without becoming too preachy or sentimental.  I’m looking forward to the film; a lot of people were talking about it at the recent L’Abri conference.
• Spoilt Victorian Child on The Third Eye Foundation’s “Corpses As Bedmates”: I don’t know if it’s the strange reverb saturated sound, or the howling noise, that gives way to that twisted screeching, but whatever it is, this is the soundtrack to your worst nightmare come true.  I couldn’t agree more.  The track is as brilliant as it is disturbing, and sometimes, I think I’d like to make a horror movie just so I could use this song in the soundtrack.
• The Jesus And Mary Chain will be reuniting to play at this year’s Coachella festival, with the possibility of more shows, and even a new JAMC record, down the road.
• Stereogum has posted a new song—“Cold Days From The Birdhouse”—from The Twilight Sad’s upcoming full-length, Fourteen Autumns And Fifteen Winters.
• Beliefnet has been hosting a fascinating and passionate (yet respectful) discussion between noted atheist Sam Harris (Letter To A Christian Nation) and blogger Andrew Sullivan (former editor of The New Republic, currently blogging for The Atlantic).  The topics?  God, faith, fundamentalism, the truthfulness of religion, and other wonderful dinnertime topics.  It’s heady reading, but well worth it.
• Can one truly have enough of Simon Pegg?  Nay, I think not.  Not when he’s gallivanting about in a pair of shorts so short, I cringe everytime he takes a step.  And so I offer you this teaser trailer from his upcoming movie, Run, Fatboy, Run.
• Pitchfork on “Breaker”, the first track from Low’s upcoming Drums And Guns: Perhaps because the core elements of their songwriting rarely change, Low have always strove to keep their sparse surroundings engaging and unpredictable, playing with production and instrumentation to create new and unusual settings for their creeping pop tracks.  It’s an interesting sound for Low, to be sure: much starker and more barren, though still ghostly and haunting in places. Drums And Guns is out March 20, 2007 on Sub Pop.

For any Lincolnites who feel like getting a dose of culture, Nebraska Wesleyan will be screening five French films March 2-4 in the Olin A Lecture Hall.  Here’s the schedule:

March 2

• 6:30pm - A Very Long Engagement

March 3

• 2:00pm - Hidden
• 6:30pm - The Beat That My Heart Skipped

March 4

• 2:00pm - The Spanish Apartment
• 6:30pm - The Child

The screenings are free (as far as I know) and each screening will be followed by a 30-minute time for discussion.

I’m planning to attend the screenings of The Beat That My Heart Skipped, which has been on my Netflix queue for ages, and The Child, which I’ve been hearing so many good things about (I was a big fan of The Dardennes’ previous film, The Son).

I often forget that the outside world is aware of Opus.  I know that people visit the site.  However, that realization exists in that quasi-abstract realm of monthly website statistics, and so it doesn’t always register with me.  Since I don’t have advertising on the site and am not really dependent on the site in any way other than as a creative, emotional, and critical outlet, statistics are largely academic for me.

Even so, such statistics are often the only evidence I have that the world outside is aware of this website on any significant level whatsoever.  And so, when something outside of Opus mentions or refers to Opus, I take note.  I still get a thrill (and a slight scare) whenever some stranger calls out my name simply because they’re familiar with the website.  Or when a person at church comments that they read one of my entries (which immediately makes me worry whether or not I wrote something potentially sacreligious or scandalous).

However, today’s event strikes me as extra-special.  It’s not every day that a friend of a friend of your wife informs you that your writing was plagiarized by a reporter from the University of Michigan’s student newspaper (CampusByline has a bit more info).

On February 7, 2007, the reporter in question, Devika Daga, posted a review of Bracken’s We Know About The Need that contained several segments which were lifted either wholesale or with minor modifications from my own review, which was posted on January 27, 2007.

It’s almost surreal to put the reviews side by side and flip between them, to see what was changed and what was not changed.  And it’s rather amusing to note the extent of Daga’s changes, to see what she apparently thought would be enough to differentiate her review from mine.  Obviously, it wasn’t enough.

To be honest, I’m not really all that offended or angered (though this, in no way, absolves Daga from the wrongness of plagiarizing someone else’s material—stealing is stealing, after all).  I suppose that, had the article in question been something of a more personal nature or something much more involved (such as an interview), I’d feel differently.

I’m more fascinated than anything else by this “debacle”.  It should be obvious to anyone who has spent any time on-line that, given the amount of information on-line and the number of people sifting through that information, any such theft or underhandedness will eventually come to light.  There are simply too many eyeballs looking at too many websites for that to not be the case.

And to be honest, a part of me is flattered, in a somewhat odd sort of way.  As my wife’s friend’s friend put it, it’s kind of neat to find out that you’re cool enough to have your stuff stolen by “hip college students”.  It’s always nice to know that folks consider your words good enough to use as their own, but it’s even nicer to get credit where credit’s due.  The next time you want to pinch a little from the Opus, just ask.  Chances are, I’ll say “yes”.

There’s not much to see when you’re travelling through the Midwest, i.e. Nebraska and Iowa.  Unlike the coasts, there’s no possibility of expansive ocean views off to the side—and the Platte river is hardly a substitute.  And unlike, say, Colorado or one of the Appalachian states, there are no mountain vistas to fill your eyes.  At most, you get a couple of foothills and a handful of bluffs.  No, driving through the Midwest is a wholly unexciting and somewhat arduous affair—something of which I was reminded once again when Renae and I travelled to the most recent L’Abri conference in Rochester, Minnesota.

It becomes even moreso during the winter, especially the farther north you go.  At least during the other seasons, there’s something to look at in the fields or on the unending waves of gently-rolling hills that line I-80, some splash of color that might catch the eye and relieve at least some of the tedium.  But during the winter months there’s nothing in those stretches between interstate exits, stretches that seem to expand the longer you’ve been travelling.

The fields of corn and wheat have been replaced by an unending blanket of white and grey, of snow and sludge, with only rocks and pale tufts of prairie grass poking through here and there.  Occasionally a naked tree, white farmhouse, or barnhouse ruins will stand out against the cloudless, slate-grey sky, its miniscule outline cutting a distinctive shape against the blank nothingness that looms behind and threatens to swallow it up.

And yet, for all of their apparent monotony, there’s something incredibly comforting about these long drives through wide-open and otherwise nondescript landscapes.  I find that as I drive even the relatively short distance between Lincoln and Omaha, a certain zen-like state often descends upon me.  At the risk of sounding like a danger to my fellow drivers, I often find that I am lost in these geographical gaps, in a sense absorbed by these huge expanses that are hemmed in only by the horizon.

And for all of their hugeness, there is an intimacy there as well.  Mountain vistas are impressive to be sure, but also feel claustrophobic.  Oceans can fill me with awe and lull me with their rhythms, but they often seem completely incomprehensible and alien.  Having been born and raised in Nebraska, however, this is my landscape.  Having come from a family of farmers, from people whose very existence is inextricably tied to the land and the soil, it’s a part of me, ingrained upon my self-consciousness, even my very soul.

Simply put, I’m at home in these spaces.  There is something comforting about them, something equally lulling about them.

And as is usually the case, I am listening to music while driving through this landscape.  And more often than not, I find that Hood’s The Cycle Of Days And Seasons is a perfect soundtrack for these long trips through a land whose monotony is shot through with nostalgia, familiarity, longing, and memory.

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