Juana Molina rules the Loop

I picked up Juana Molina's new album, Un Día, last night, and I've had it on repeat all day today. It's warm, lovely, and a little bit skewed. In other words, it's my ideal soundtrack for spring.

Recommended Reading: The Chase, by Alejo Carpentier

The Chase is the story of a fugitive, a member of Cuba’s communist party who is running for his life. He takes refuge in a concert hall where Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony is being performed, and he arrives just in time for the second movement: a funeral march.

Originally published in 1956, before the beginning of the Cuban Revolution, The Chase is a tale of disillusionment with a corrupt left-wing movement, which has become as brutal as the government it seeks to overthrow. It is no accident that Carpentier opens the novel against the backdrop of the Eroica (or “Heroic”) Symphony. This particular piece of music had been inspired by Napoleon Bonaparte and the ideals of the French Revolution, and the symphony’s original title was Buonaparte. However, after Napoleon was declared Emperor of France, Beethoven changed the symphony’s name in disgust. The Chase explores the brutality that accompanies the struggle for power, and the betrayal of the ideals for which the revolutionaries fought. As the plot unfolds, from the points of view of the fugitive and the ticket seller at the concert hall, we learn the extent to which the revolutionaries of the story have lost faith in their cause.

Carpentier renders sensory information in crystalline detail. In the Havana concert hall where the story begins, a rainstorm has forced the crowd indoors. “The moist scents of green poplars and watered lawns” transport the reader to that hot Caribbean night, and we can almost feel the sweat rolling down a woman’s soft back, which looks “as though it were being pressed by a thumb at each shoulder blade.” The sights, sounds, and smells of the concert hall and the city are clear and vivid. On the other hand, the fugitive’s voice is emotional and visceral. His hunger, his dirty clothes, and his terror are presented in a raw onslaught of information.

Brain-Machine Interface Technology, now with cute humanoid robots

Came across this posted on io9.com; Honda is testing new technology that allows humans to control machines using thoughts alone.

...and I have to say: NO, it would not be convenient for the climate control system to adjust itself based on my thoughts! Just because I'm warm, that doesn't mean that I want to use more energy and spend more money! I don't want my every impulse to be manifested in reality. I want to make the decisions.

But I do want one of those helmet/cute robot setups.