Well, another week is in the books, and there's a great weekend ahead. If you're a sports fan, you can't miss tomorrow's giant showdown between Michigan and Ohio State. I'll be pulling for the Wolverines despite being a Badgers fan, because I can't stand The Ohio State. Go Wolverines.
Also, there's some great movies out there at the theaters now, so make sure you get out out and see a couple. We discussed our recommendations a couple posts back...anyone have any input on any of them? We're probably going to see Borat this weekend and work our way down the list from there.
Sports
Nickelback denied Ohio State-Michigan Tickets
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Not even rock stars can get tickets for Saturday's Michigan-Ohio State game.
The band Nickelback was looking for four tickets to the game, but there wasn't any more room and the group has no known connection to the university, Ohio State spokesman Steve Snapp said this week.
There's a lot of love in college football these days...just not for Nickelback
Members of country group Rascal Flatts, Yankees shortshop Derek Jeter and former Buckeyes Eddie George and Cris Carter are among those have reserved sideline passes, Snapp said.
Game tickets are so coveted that one Columbus ticket broker said they're fetching between $550 and $1,500 apiece.
Two of the three members of Rascal Flatts grew up in Columbus. Their publicist said Wednesday that they haven't decided whether they can attend.
Jeter, who grew up in Kalamazoo, Mich., and got a baseball scholarship to Michigan, will be on the Wolverines' side of the field...[READ MORE]
I'd probably deny Nickelback tickets to "Happy Feet" if I could. Seriously, there are that terrible. I'd rather invite Paris Hilton over to play chess than see them at that football game. Somehow I think it would just spoil things for me.
NFL Workout: Pom-pom Power
Cheerleaders pull up their boots and train for Sundays on the sidelines
By Ben Reiter
Three evenings a week, for three hours at a stretch, choreographer Trisia Brown leads the Dolphins' 40 cheerleaders through a workout no less intense than those run by Miami coach Nick Saban in the adjacent practice bubble. The room thunders with the impact of 80 three-inch high-heeled boots (which the cheerleaders never take off during their workout) hitting the hardwood floor as the women, ages 18 to 36, power through routines with only one five-minute break.
Cheerleading combines elements of aerobics, plyometrics (a training discipline based on bounding and jumping) and yoga. The practices prepare the group for Sundays that include continuous dancing and kicklines on the sideline, and up to four rigorous in-game routines, all for a wage of $75 per game. (Cheerleaders are either students or have full-time jobs.) "You try walking around for five hours in those boots and holding those poms," says Brown. "It's tougher than it looks." Here's how they get ready.
NECK MOVES
"Without stretching, neck injuries would be common," says team director Heather Fraga. Brandi Bloomberg will hold this stretch for several seconds. A limber neck also helps Bloomberg flaunt what she calls her "greatest tool": her hair...[READ MORE]
Literature
The Last Antiwar Poem
Fifty years ago this month, City Lights Books published Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems--a collection of ranting, ecstatic verses that challenged the conservatism of Eisenhower-era America. Within a year of its publication, Howl had become the focus of an obscenity trial that ultimately redefined the limits of free expression in America. Considered by many to be a triumphant literary precursor to '60s counterculture and youth rebellion, Howl and Other Poems went on to sell more than a million copies and influence a generation of poets.
No doubt Howl will continue to be recognized as an essential twentieth-century poem, but if we aspire this year to recognize the anniversary of a Ginsberg poem that still seems relevant and challenging, we should fast-forward ten years to 1966, when the iconic Beat poet penned "Wichita Vortex Sutra"--an antiwar lament that carries an observational honesty not present in the MTV din of Howl.
"Wichita Vortex Sutra" originated as a kind of proto-podcast that Ginsberg intoned into an Uher tape recorder while traveling across the American heartland in the winter of 1966. In the early verses Ginsberg makes his way south into Kansas from Nebraska, juxtaposing images of the Great Plains landscape with fragmented media reports about the distant war in Vietnam. Reciting the bloodless newspeak that will sound familiar to anyone who has followed the current Iraq War (vague phrases like "tactical bombing" and "limited objectives"), Ginsberg eventually grows impatient, dismissing official military body counts as "the latest quotation in the human meat market..." [READ MORE]
Read Witchita Vortex Sutra here
Speaking of poetry, make sure you swing by The Brother Swimming Beneath Me to check out some good original poety, interesting links, mp3s, song compositions and covers from my good friend Brent.
Music
Architecture in Helsinki EP's
We've been huge supporters of Architecture in Helsinki after they stole the show from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! in Minneapolis. Luckily, I was able to get my hands on some of their out-of-print EP's to pass along a couple of tracks to you.
If you're new to AIH, here's a little rundown thanks to their Trifekta website:
If ever there was a way you could link post-acid Beach Boys, preinsanity Prince, Burt Bacharach, The Tom Tom Club, Penguin Cafe Orchestra and Peter Hook, somewhere at the end of it all you mayvery well find Architecture In Helsinki.
Architecture in Helsinki is a six-piece of like-minded types based in and around Fitzroy, Melbourne. Members Cameron Bird, James Cecil, Isobel Knowles, Jamie Mildren, Sam Perry and Kellie Sutherland began colluding musically in the depths of winter 2000.
Spending their first year sporadically rehearsing, swapping instruments and occasionally playing live, the band began recording their album close to two years ago.
The band recorded the album by themselves at a number of locations in both the city and the country in such unlikely places as beach houses, abandoned church halls, flash recording studios, hallway stairs and student bedrooms.
The list of instruments played on the album reads like that of a wayward school band: synths, guitars, bass, glockenspiel, drums and percussion, trumpet, tuba, trombone, clarinet, recorder, handclaps, finger clicks, kids voices and crowd shouts.
Reflecting the diverse influences and inspirations of each band member, the tracks embrace live instrumentation and electronic wizardry, delicately threaded together in a fashion that is fresh and inspired in its production and (de)construction...[READ MORE]
Like a Call (2003)
Architecture in Helsinki - "Feather in a Baseball Cap"
Architecture in Helsinki - "Like a Call (Jeremy Dower mix)"
Kindling (2003)
Architecture in Helsinki - "Almost a Trap vs. Fumble"
Architecture in Helsinki - "The Owls Go" (live on Triple-J)
Keepsake (2004)
Architecture in Helsinki - "Printemp 2008" (featuring Pierre Bastien)
Architecture in Helsinki - "Sooner than Soon" (Extended)
Thanks to Abstractboy for the AIH photo