Natasha Shneider, the righteous woman on keys from Queens of the Stone Age, lost her battle to cancer on July the 2nd. Shneider had a long musical career, that included work with Chris Cornell, Louis XIV, Eleven, and I’m sure about a hundred other kickass bands that most of us will never even hear about. Shneider was 52 years old.

[The following was written by Synthesis Weekly columnist Emilie Clark. She can be reached at emilie@synthesis.net.]

Coming Soon

It’s a well-known fact that people like to adapt movies from books. It’s also a well-known fact that most of these efforts suck. So it’s my job to warn you about upcoming adaptations so you have ample time to read the book. This gives you the chance to complain about inconsistencies and general “suckiness” while still in the theater, making you look learned and therefore more attractive. You can thank me later.

Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, July 4th: This is a documentary, so I guess it won’t really do to get mad about liberties taken with the adaptation. But it can’t hurt to read some of the famous Gonzo’s work if only for your own amusement. From the description it seems like the filmmakers are big fans, which can be bad in a documentary if you’re trying to eek out truth. The gist I get is that the point the film makes is that Thompson did what journalists are too afraid to do nowadays, namely get high and write caustic things about politicians. This may be true, but I easily tire of ‘60s and ‘70s nostalgia. Sure people were a bit crazier back then and I’m sure there are things to be learned from that era, but it’s over, so deal.

Journey To the Center of the Earth 3D, July 11th: Based on the classic Jules Verne novel about a rogue scientist who travels to, you guessed it, the center of the earth. According to Wikipedia, this novel didn’t age as well as some of Verne’s other works, because he was mostly wrong about what is contained in the center of the earth. However, none of that really matters because this movie is in 3D. And I will watch anything in 3D, even if it stars Brendan Fraser.

more upcoming adaptations after the jump.
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Def Jux recording artist Tero "Camu Tao" Smith lost his two year battle with lung cancer this past Sunday at the age of 30. From labelmate and collaborator El-P’s blog:

TODAY, around 2pm, our dear friend, family member and musical collaborator Tero "CAMU TAO" Smith passed away in his home town of Columbus, Ohio. Tero had been quietly fighting for his life for the last year and a half after being diagnosed with lung cancer.

To those who knew Tero, he was an almost uncategorizable force of nature. Wild, hilarious, proud, loving, tough, outspoken, spontaneous and brilliant. He wore his heart on his sleeve and he dripped creativity, leaving inspiration and awe in the hearts and minds of anyone who was fortunate enough to see him work.

We, his friends and family, have truly had our collective hearts broken by his passing. Not only because of the loss of our friend, but because of the loss of his contribution to those who never knew what we knew about his talent and his potential. He was the secret that no one wanted to keep and we always knew that one day his vision and his heart could change music forever the way he changed all of our lives.

His departure from us all 1 month away from his 31st birthday is nothing less than a tragedy… nothing less than a crime. he was a gift to us all and he is irreplaceable. Rest in peace, Mu. We will love you forever. May god bless you and your family.

R.I.P.
Tero "CAMU TAO" Smith
born 6/26/77, passed 5/25/08
wm/cc

sincerely,
jaime "el-p" meline (on behalf of many, many wonderful and broken hearted friends)

According to the Norwegian tabloid Verdens Gang, Kaja Bordevich Ballo, daughter of Norwegian Parliament member Olav Gunnar Ballo, reportedly took her own life [English translation] after scoring poorly on a Scientology personality test. There is some skepticism as to the validity of the report. The results of the test were time-stamped just hours before Ballo’s death, but this could merely be an excuse to cover up the real cause of death, given that Kaja comes from a politically motivated family.

As you may have heard, the personality test, also called the Oxford Capacity Analysis (OCA) or American Personality Analysis, is offered free by the Church of Scientology and comprises an integral part of their recruitment efforts. The test however, has been extensively criticized as it almost exclusively yields negative results. Here are some testimonials from people who have taken the test:
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[Synthesis blog once again brings you the philosophy of Synthesis Weekly columnist Mad Bob. With no further adieu, we present to you Immaculate Infection.]

Beauty, Paranoia and Black Holes

J. Edgar Hoover: J. Edgar Hoover was the former head of the FBI and a severely sinister and creepy individual. He was twisted and power-hungry and would stop at nothing to increase his own influence and prestige. He built the FBI into a potent law enforcement tool but he also used that potency to achieve his own selfish and strange gains.
One of the suspect activities the FBI indulged in under Hoover’s watch was to secretly wiretap figures within the Civil Rights movement. As a result, the FBI accumulated hours upon hours of clandestine footage of Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. While the practice is dubious and illegal, historians today are absolutely ecstatic to have this treasure trove of information that shines a light into the personality of such a dynamic public figure.

It turns out that what Martin Luther King Jr. revealed in those tapes is even more selfless and righteous than his public personae. He was not an attention-seeker; in fact he consistently bemoaned the public role that was thrust upon him. King spoke often of being tired, of just wanting to go back to being a preacher, which he felt was what God had called upon him to do. But, with the encouragement of the people with whom he had surrounded himself, he pushed on until the fateful day he was assassinated in April of 1968. Incidentally, there is more than a little suspicion that Hoover’s FBI was involved in that incident.

Listening through these tapes, Hoover did not take away the beauty and selflessness of the man in question. Instead, he focused his attention on King’s imperfections. The tapes revealed that King was an adulterer and Hoover quickly labeled him a sexual deviant and a hypocrite. He found every avenue he could to dehumanize and tear down a great man.
It is difficult for me to explain this, but I feel badly for J. Edgar Hoover. How could a man have so much hatred in his heart that they fail to see the brilliance of a once-in-a-lifetime figure like Martin Luther King Jr.?


Withdrawing the Benefit of the Doubt: It is jading, but helpful, to understand that there are people out there very much like this — people whose hearts are so hardened and filled with cynicism that they would miss the beauty that surrounds them. The truth of the matter is that the establishment is fundamentally afraid of change. It makes sense; if one has power, they will do whatever they have to do in order to hold onto it. This is why you will never see the Federal Government choosing to decentralize its power and shift it to states and local government. This is why the establishment was afraid to let blacks and women vote. This is why the Chinese army drove tanks into Tiananmen Square, and this is why more recently the Burmese Government slaughtered monks. This is why the establishment crucified a man for speaking a new philosophy and causing agitation amongst the populace.
So anyway — I have a tendency to give people the benefit of the doubt. For years I have, in my head, reconciled George W. Bush’s actions with the unique pressures and situations he finds himself in. I have said to myself, “Well, I’m sure that his intentions are good.” I formally withdraw that benefit of the doubt. I have come to the conclusion that people like Bush and Cheney simply don’t see the beauty in this world. Bush may see beauty in some perceived afterlife, and as for Cheney, I am not convinced he sees beyond dollars and cents and beyond the limitations of his own lifetime. My conclusion is that these guys are in it for their lifespans and then they’ll leave the mess for generations after them to deal with. It’s a sinister world view, but actions don’t lie. You don’t break laws, establish a secretive cabal-like government, drop bombs, consistently increase military spending and wage preemptive warfare because you’re trying to create a peaceful and tolerant future. It is pure and simple retention of power.

Black Holes and Cosmic Lessons: It goes on and on. But we can find pertinent patterns in nature. A black hole sucks everything into it until, as the theory goes, it reaches critical mass. Then all the accumulated centralized energy and power bursts forth and is once again disseminated to the universe.
Power centers will crumble, establishments will fall.
Come on people — send me your thoughts and ideas. Madbob@madbob.com.

My electronic music teacher, Dr. Barker, turned our class on to a lot of cool 20th century experimental music — the kind that informed Radiohead when they were writing Kid-A. One of the highest-regarded early electronic music composers, Karl Stockenhausen, has passed away at age 79.

Apart from providing good shit to listen to while re-wiring your brain with LSD, composers like Stockenhausen expanded the idea of sound as music, bending traditional notions of scales and modes by using intense repetition of sound, the sounds of the everyday world, and the echoing acoustics of a hall, proving that basically anything can be regarded as music or art. He also pissed a lot of people off with that very notion.

Stockhausen sparked controversy in 2001, when he described the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States as “the greatest work of art one can imagine” during a news conference in the northern German city of Hamburg, where several of the suicide pilots had lived.

Through his work in the field of electronic music, he is also considered one of the forefathers of techno. So I guess he’s also partially responsible for this:

Read AP’s article after the jump.
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