Economy: Internet Rekindled The Radio Star

 

(Drivebycuriosity) - "Video Killed the Radio Star". This song by the British Synthpop/New Wave group "The Buggles" (released 1979 wikipedia) described the situation in the late 70s and 80s. Videos on MTV and other TV channels stole the audience of the radio stations then. But now it looks like that radio stations came back. It seems that the Internet rekindled the radio. On the world wide web you can find thousands of stations worldwide and listen to them for free.

One of them is "East Village Radio" (eastvillageradio) named after the popular neighborhood in South Manhattan, New York City. When you walk on 1st Avenue just north of Houston Street you can watch their disc jockeys doing their job in a kind of shop window. This is one of these stations I can even listen to in Germany in spite of copyright restrictions which hinder sometimes the international transfer of music.

Very helpful are radio aggregators like Apple`s iTunes, which offers a lot of stations catering differing tastes from Death Metal to Opera. On of my favorite stations is "Institutionalized Cows", which offers a fine mixture of alternative rock.  They compete against providers like "Internet-Radio.com" (internet-radio) or "Live365.com (live365.com). Sadly others like Pandora aren´t available outside of U.S. because of licensing constraints. But there is still enough program to find.

 Enjoy!

Movies: Farewell, My Queen

 

 (Drivebycuriosity) - How would you feel if your world is suddenly falling apart? You could get an impression with the French movie "Farewell, My Queen" (imdb), which started recently in U.S cinemas (in French with English subtitles).

The film tells the story of a young female servant who works as a reader for Marie Antoinette (wikipedia). You can experience with her eyes how the artificial and formerly protected world of Versailles and the French royals is getting destroyed by the French revolution. Persons who were used to a charmed life suddenly find themselves on death lists.

"Farewell…" is very different from Sofia Coppola´s "Marie Antoinette", which specialized on the decadent heydays of the Austrian born french Queen. The movie works partly as a historic thriller and transmits the growing fear, panic and cluelessness of the royals in the light of the revolution which spreads like Cholera. You can almost smell the sweat of fear. But the brutality of the mob isn´t shown explicitly, instead the disaster approaches mostly in the shape of rumors and news.

"Farewell.." also is a film about beauty and erotics and benefits a lot from talent and looks of the leading actresses. The french actress and model Léa Seydoux, who already was 27 years old while shooting, played convincingly the very young servant. She displayed a mixture of innocence & naivety but also curiosity, aplomb and a bit of stubbornness while watching the downfall of her superiors. 

The German born top model Diane Kruger (birth name Diane Heidkrüger) played Marie Antoinette and exhibited how the bored and capricious aristocrat got more and more haunted. Virginie Ledoyen, who who has just a minor role as the queen`s real love, enriched the movie by her sheer delicacy.

The cinematography by Romain Winding displayed both worlds: Either the dying luxury of Versailles and the growing claustrophobia suffered by people who are being sucked into the vortex of the bloody revolution. "Farewell…." fulfilled my hopes which Sophia Coppola`s film had waked.

Stock Market: Smoke On The Water

I don´t like quarterly numbers. They focus on a too short time span and are therefore too much influenced by random factors. The German sports car maker Porsche, which is now part of Volkswagen, refused to publish quarterly numbers when the company was still listed on the German stock market. Hence Porsche was excluded from the MDax, which is a index for middle sized German companies.

The car maker claimed that they focus on the long term growth of the company which should maximize the wealth of their stock owners. Furthermore their business is strongly influenced by seasonal factors. Thus 3-month-reports aren´t a meaningful base of information for the stake holders, they said. 

Porsche was right. Quarterly numbers reflect a lot of random factors. The reported profits could swing erratically because of sudden changes of tax rates, accounting methods, swings in foreign exchange and interest rates, fluctuations in consumer spending and many other causes. For instance, if customers are waiting on a product update, maybe a new car model, the sales of the current product can temporarily sink and blur the quarterly results.

If management feels obliged to deliver high profits in every quarter to please the myopic crowd of analysts and fund managers, it could be forced to avoid necessary expenses which would temporarily reduce profits but boost company income in the future. The company could invest less in new products and markets because this causes high costs at present. Hence focusing on quarterly numbers discourages research & development and slows down the growth of the whole economy.

Because of their randomness, quarterly numbers produce a lot of noise and smoke which can spoil the view on the long term trend. Companies like Amazon.com ignore the myopic view of the stock market and invest for the long term even though this could cause erratic stock price fluctuations. But they do pretty well over the long run as the stock performance in the recent years proves.

Disclaimer: I am invested in Amazon.com.

New York City: Painting The Lower East Side

In New York something is always going on. Connoisseurs of the arts, especially, find a lot to discover.

The Lower East Side in South Manhattan looks like an outdoor museum. When you walk the streets there then you can very often spot some artists working. They don´t paint on canvas. Instead they are brushing their murals on walls and abandoned trailers.

This week I spotted an artist from the centrifuge project at an trailer in East 1st Street (boweryboogie.com). Other pictures are from Rivington Street and places nearby.

Culture: 4 Knots Music Festival, New York City

 

(Drivebycuriosity) - New York City is a very expensive place. But many things are for free, for instance some rock concerts. Last Saturday my girlfriend and I attended the "4Knots Music Festival" (villagevoice.com/4knots). 

This is a free of charge event at Manhattan´s touristy South Street Seaport. The annual concert, which is hosted by the Village Voice, a print and online magazine about New York´s culture & nightlife, replacing since last year, the Siren Festival which had taken place on Coney Island inside a leisure park on one of New York´s beaches.

Surprisingly the festival wasn`t as crowded as similar European events are. It was very easy for us to worm our way close to the stage. The audience was very relaxed and many spectators were casually dressed and didn´t look like the usual rock concerts buffs.

My favorite band was the "Crocodiles" from San Diego (myspace). Their gig was around 40 minutes delayed because of a fire on the nearby Seaport pier which was handled by the fire department with a lot of trucks and even a fire boat. We were highly rewarded for the wait. The five Californian (3 male guitar players plus 2 girls on keyboards & percussion) served a powerful rock with influences from grunge & punk. Highly enjoyable!

That night we attended the After Party show which cost just $15 bucks per head. The night time view of Manhattan  and of the Brooklyn & Manhattan Bridge almost was worth the fee. They had 2 bands which didn`t play the expected party and disco music and delivered instead hot rock music.  "Kid Congo Powers and The Pink Monkey Birds", a band from Washington DC (myspace), started the party with a groovy power pop and psychedelic elements. They were followed by the "Black Lips" from Atlanta (myspace) who turned up the heat and let the crowd jump with their rough power guitar play.

Unfortunately a lot of visitors close to the stage were drunk and some even started fights with  security which seemed to be understaffed.  But they soon brought it under control and the party continued peacefully. I certainly hope the Village Voice will continue this festival next year.

Movies: Savages

 

(Drivebycuriosity) - Don`t mess with the Mexicans. Many movies deal with the extreme brutality of the Mexican drug cartels. Oliver Stone joined the crowd and delivered "Savages", which started recently in U.S. cinemas (imdb). His film is not as rough & dirty as Gerardo Naranjobut`s "Miss Bala" (drivebycuriosity), but that´s ok. "Savages" has enough scenes to scare the hell out of you and is highly entertaining.

Based on the same named novel by Don Winslow the flick tells the story of 2 Californian beach boys and highly successful pot growers and their shared girlfriend who slide into a very messy clash with a Mexican drug cartel. Stone and his co-scriptwriters Shane Salerno & Don Winslow created an appealing narrative of naivte, greed, extreme violence, corruption and betrayal. For many people "Savages" seems to work even as a comedy. At least the audience in Manhattan´s 34th Street (Midtown) had a lot of fun with it and almost every scene got a lot of laughs!

The cast is really fun. I enjoyed the newest incarnation of John Travolta as a corrupt narcotics officer between the frontiers of the drug war. The actor has been developing his nonchalance to perfection and plays his role enlighted almost like a Buddha. Selma Hayek as a drug leader with a Cleopatra wig emits enough viciousness to freeze the hell and Benicio del Tore as her ruthless but twisted enforcer seems to be on a straight rout to an Oscar.   

The (relatively) newcomer trio Blake Lively, Taylor Kitsch and Aaron Johnson as the weed producing beach bum threesome doesn`t match them, but did a good job anyway.  Their endangered Ménage à trois delivers salt to the story. But don`t expect European style sex scenes. The flick is made for a prudish American audience.

"Savages" also serves the cineasts. The cinematography of Daniel Mindel is one of the finest works I have recently seen. He created pictures which are constantly changing. Gorgeous landscapes jump into desert scenes and to coolish interior shots, colorful scenes switched with black-and-white shots. The pulsing cinematography, which is sometimes like a psychedelic trip, helps to suck the audience deep into the story. 

 The soundtrack plays an important part to augment the attention. A surprising eclectic mixture of classical music (Johannes Brahms wikipedia) with Bob Dylan, rap, reggae and latin rock keeps you on alert. The use of Peter Tosh´s "Legalize it" wasn't a coincidence.

Olive Stone found the common denominator and serves different tastes quite satisfyingly. I reckon that this movie will be remembered in years when "Spiderman" and "Avengers" already are forgotten.

Culture: Shakespeare In The Parking Lot, Lower East Side, New York City

Parking lots are for parking, right? Right. But there are exceptions. For instance on New York´s Lower East Side you can watch Shakespeare. While cars are contriving into their parking spots and people are drawing their parking tickets a fine ensemble performs plays from the English Master (shakespeareintheparkinglot.com).

From July 12 trough July 28, Thursdays - Saturdays at 8:00 PM, they are giving "The Merry Wives of Windsor Towers" (wikipedia). And for August 2-18 they announced Shakespeare`s "Coriolanus".

Yesterday I enjoyed the performance which was funny & entertaining. The actors, who were wearing casual clothes, performed with engagement and exhilaration. Even some rain drops and the usual New York symphony of honking cars, motors, sirens and a lot more noises didn`t disturb the play.

Well, in one point they were´t really original. In Shakespeare´s times all theater rolls were played by men, even the women´s characters. This play had real girls! At least one bit of progress in around 500 years.