Fractionals

So, like a lot of people, I love the Beyonce 'Crazy In Love' single, mostly for the horns (those horns!). I downloaded the single and the instrumental version, and found something interesting; a version, obviously a bad one, where Beyonce's voice doesn't sound like it does on the radio, more like it's being run through some odd, subtle pitchshifter.

It's great. God bless these accidental crappy versions. I've got a copy of Idlewild's 'You Held The World In Your Arms' broadcast over the radio, and it sounds like it's trying to tear the MP3 apart and escape. This sort of thing needs to happen more often.

See, Pitchfork isn't all bad.

Best song of right now: 'Apologies To Insect Life' by British Sea Power. I don't think I mentioned it before, but fuck it. That moment at the end where it suddenly shifts into a higher gears and he shouts out "A! Pol! O! Gies! To insect life!" is awesome.

Having finally heard the highlights from their first album, I can confirm something I'd long suspected: The New Pornagraphers leave me slightly cold. Kind of like Manitoba, actually.

Oh, and I, uh, kind of got hired by Stylus. More on that later, once I know more.

So I forgot to post a WES yesterday, even though I had something ready. But I'm going to be extremely busy this week and next at least with newspaper stuff, so I'm going to save that premade stuff for next week, and actually skip a week. Hope it doesn't become a habit.

If you go to an old entry at Pete's journal you can read the full story of how Mike wound up being the lead singer of the Weakerthans for a rendition of 'Wellington's Wednesdays'. Awesome story.

Just bought Blue Skied An' Clear on first site, and while I'd admit it's for a rather limited audience (German quasi-ambient label's tribute to Slowdive), but I'm in that limited audience, and I think it's amazing so far.

So I'm not missing much, then.

I love Tom Ewing.

Sex in Japan is weird.

Jizzournal is in the hizzouse. Link is on the side, you know where to find it.

The reason Homicide is my favorite cop show, why it's my favorite show period, is simple: It is entirely unconcerned with the normal preoccupations of the police procedural. Whodunnit is so rarely even a question, as is how was it done. It's done, we know how, we want to know why. K. refers to it as the most psychological police show she has seen, and she's right. Episode after episode delves into issues of guilt, loss and punishment. Almost every case has either no suspects or one that the cops are sure about (which is, as I understand it, how the business looks to a cop). And from the viewer's perspective, it is very, very easy to spot the guilty ones. That's never in question. The question is whether or not they can be caught, usually not from evidence so much as winning a battle of wills with them in Box, and what it will cost the cop in question to do that. Over and over the consequences of crime rather than the actual crime or the prosecution of the crime is the focus. There are lighter moments, sure, but the core of the show is the utterly banality, capriciousness and power of evil.

An autistic eight-year-old boy has died during a prayer service held to supposedly cure him of the evil spirits blamed for causing his condition.

I remember our English Media teacher in Grade 12 (a great class, by the way) bringing this in to have us watch it each week, so it's been going on for a while. It's cool as hell that BoingBoing is mentioning it.

Yeah, I know what you mean. My guilty pleasure is usually either Freecell or Minesweeper.

To continue my further inter-site dialogue with Southall (now linked at the side), I have to refer to this:

"I don’t mean a single word of it. Some of you are pinning significance to these lines, finding profundity in the colons and the html coding and the occasional bursts of profanity, feeling passion and belief and a definite sense of purpose, and the simple fact is that I’m sitting here, for the most part, with a bottle of Nastro Azzurro or whatever next to me, and I’m just writing, like it’s a job or a chore or a reflex action."

Well, of course. None of us do. All good writers (all good artists) are a strange mix of the fraud and the sincere. If we really all meant the stuff we wrote, what sort of people would that make us? Not the kind fit for human society, at the very least. This is, of course, a point he makes later; but whereas he points out that this level of projection or screening is necessary for our mental health, I would argue further that it is necessary for the creation of the art work.

This article has been brought to you by Nick’s Internal Po-Mo Bullshit Generator.

...As this head falls to shoulder

Short update (very short) on the journal. It's linked to the left and I'm tired.

Create your own internet fetish subculture!

I thought 'artistic merit' was public good, but I guess the law doesn't agree with me. I still stand by my earlier opinion: if any actual kids are involved, it's horrible and illegal, but if somebody wants to write a story to get their rocks off and never touches any kids I may find it disturbing but better that than molestation, I would think.

So they may free the children being held at Guantanamo Bay. Better than nothing, I suppose. Still not good.

See, occasionally Pitchfork still nails it. If I want "southern rock" I'll listen to the Allmans doing 'Whipping Post', thanks very much. Having been raised partially on them and Little Feat I have very little tolerance for Kings Of Leon right now. Horrible album art as well.

Wigu! Wigu! Wigu!

Penny Arcade gets back to what it's really all about: brutal, unprovoked violence.

Awesome! Link via Largehearted Boy.

I know, I know - on to greener pastures soon. But - this is absolutely crucial to read. I'm not as anti-Pitchfork as some of these people (although we are utterly in agreement on the subject of Chris fucking Ott: complete wanker), but I loathe hipsters and hipsters loathe me. I think I don't wear the right kind of clothes or something.

So Nick Southall (who I am not, I swear, stalking) quasi-inadventently leads me, via a cryptic entry, to the blog of fellow Stylusite Sam Bloch. And I'm reading it, thinking, isn't he one of the guys on Stylus (which my love-hate relationship with will probably feature in a Wednesday's Emotional Setup at some point) whom I hate, whose writing I loathe and revile (even if I do sometimes agree with them - no one said it was a rational loathing). And I remember that this is why I thought so, but then I read the blog, and damned if it isn't great, and I reread some of his best reviews (and that Think Tank piece in particular needs to be widely disseminated - in lieu of defending that album i'll just pass it along, I guess), and really, his top ten includes Rings Around The World and Singles Going Steady and Chairs Missing and XTRMNTR, and I think that maybe I'm being just a bit too curmudgeonly recently about good ol' Stylus. I think I've grown too accustomed to mentally filing their writers as hit or shit, so if I see something that kind of mildly hints at annoyance I just write the person off. And I think that's being unfair to Sam (even though it has no effect on him whatsoever and I'm sure he doesn't care). His blog is definitely worth reading. I mean, he's certainly not one of those unreadable pomo bastards who delight in not actually telling us anything at all. In fact, his stuff reminds me a great deal of the way I used to write a few years back (although, in a burst of TMFTML-like humility (to digress further, that completes our regularly scheduled diptych of references for the day, Southall and TMFTML - I'm pretty sure I'm the only raging fanboy of both), I must say that I think his stuff now is better, certainly more coherent than my stuff then (or, the crowd snickers, right now, you tosser); and I am forced to capitulate to the fact that he writes for Stylus and I am merely the incipient Arts & Culture editor of a university newspaper in Ontario. But who gets paid more, eh?). So kudos to Sam, and even if he decides this whole criticism thing is too much technique, not enough groove (don't we all feel that way sometimes?), I hope he keeps writing.

Can you tell I can't get to sleep?

In other Stylus news, not sure what I think of this new Dave Queen guy. Veers from good to crap, I'll have to see what side the needle finally falls on after more reviews. There's only so much pomoing I can take.

Joe Panzner: Jesus Fuck can that kid write! Having read both that recommendation and Carlin's, I think I better go pick up Duos For Doris

Looks like Johnny Cash is planning to die with his boots on, at least in terms of music. Poor guy.

"To make up for the bad experience I had had that day, my friends and I drove to Burger King, but do you know what happened that made my day worse? I saw a homeless man jacking off in the parking lot, and he looked directly into my eyes."

The Achewood Variety Hour: You know you want it.

I'm not a huge fan of McSweeney's (to return to the immortal words of Sloan, "It's not the band I hate, it's their fans"), but this is an idea whose time has come.

Alan from low now has a tour diary up from when they did some shos with radiohead. Yes, I would have killed to see it; unfortunately all the shows were in Italy and Spain. Sounds like it was great fun.

Personally, I found this very disturbing, but K. just sort of went 'meh'. Your mileage may vary, I guess.

Found in the latest Popbitch to hit my inbox:

"I saw a test screening of Kill Bill a few days ago. The thirty-minute fight scene will give the MPAA a stroke. Arguably the most violent fight scene in any film, animated or live-action. Blood sprays, people scream in pain... Truly incredible. It has a level of violence not seen in cinemas in ages. A little light in the story department, but that's OK. This is a movie you watch for the action and the Tarantino-cool, not for the story craftsmanship.

"And when Uma Thurman sets her eyes on one of the villains, this amazing, 70s wakka-cha-wakka synthesizer cranks up. RZA did the music for this, and goddammit if his soundtrack didn't rattle my balls."

Wednesday's Emotional Setup: Bands I Am Allowed To Obsess Over

I am slowly (very, very slowly) paring down the CD collection. I've done the hard part, already mentioned, of paring out all the stuff I might conceivably get rid of and now I just need the time to go through it all. Without buying new things (unfortunately, Hot Rocks and The Original Sound Of Sheffield 78/82 et al continue showing up at my house).

So I've been thinking a lot recently about my buying habits, and about what, really, I need to own. Well, need is a bit much (and a terribly misused word, to boot); what I want to own. Take, to big an already mentioned example, the Rolling Stones. Does the collection I have include every single Stones song I like? No. But do I really need to get any more of their stuff? I don't think so.

And that got me thinking about the bands that I do need to get more stuff from. I don't mean the bands I have one album by and want more (Mclusky) or where I want the album period (British Sea Power), or the ones where one or two more things and I'm pretty sure I'll never need anything else by them (Slowdive). I mean the ones where I have basically said to myself, "Self, we all need to have some indulgences in life. This band is one of them. If you see anything of quality by them and you have money, you must buy it. You will thank me later".

And so I've come up with a list. I don't know what it says about my taste in music, or even about the ones that didn't quite make the list (case in point: super Furry Animals. Phantom Power has underwhelmed me to the extent that Rings Around The World, which I loved, did everyone else. And I never got into Mwng, no matter how much I would have liked to - my relation to them is thus undergoing reassessment, although Fuzzy Logic and Guerrilla continue to thrill. End of tangent).

The Fall:
Actually the band that started this. On the one hand, Code: Selfish and 'The Birmingham School Of Business School' aside, I'm not sure I like the Fall the way I like most of the other bands I have. But I can't get enough of them. I've bought two albums, a singles compilation, two live albums and a two-disc anthology I haven't even heard yet (it's in the pile). The Fall is one of the bands where the 'quality' caveat comes into play, as wel, as if I were to go to Sam The Record Man in Toronto and buy one of everything they have I'd be out several hundred for a small number of discs with poor quality and much repetition. But other than that I have never seen a Fall album and not bought it, ever since I saw 'Hit The North' on The Wedge years ago.

New Order:
Tally is now four albums and the Substance comp. I'm not necessarily on going crazy here (no Movement, in other words), but I've not been disappointed so far, and although I came to them fairly late in life and with no precedents to enjoying this sort of music (and frankly, who else makes this sort of music?), the pure joy that 'Regret', or 'Crystal', or 'Broken Promise', or 'Your Silent Face', or espcecially, always, 'Temptation' endgender in me means that I am fully content to fund Sumner, Hook et al's dotage, especially when it produces albums as good as Get Ready.

Spiritualized/Spacemen 3:
Yes, I know they're different. But they might as well not be. I don't believe that there's any on way that rock and roll, or music in general should be, but Jason Pierce has exemplified one vision of how it can be ever since Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space was bought, solely on the basis of an old NME review, when I was 17. They led me to the Stooges, Loop, Suicide, Can, My Bloody Valentine, Mercury Rev, and a lot more. I don't care if half of the Spacemen 3 songs sound exactly the same. That's the point. I desperately await the Complete Works, Vol. 2 and the new, 'garage' Spiritualized album.

Wire:
Again, the quality thing - I'm not planning on picking up everything they ever put out in the 80s. But Pink Flag will one day be mine, and I plan on buying everything they put out now until the quality falls off, as the Read & Burn EPs were spectacular, as was Send, although it was basically the EPs repackaged. Like I said: Obsessed.

Belle & Sebastian:
I liked the last album. I don't care if everyone ese is still pining for The Boy With The Arab Strap or If You're Feeling Sinister. I'll continue to pick up the occasional EP and all of the albums until they stop making the best pop songs (at least in one sense of the word 'pop') of the current era.

radiohead:
What is is about first loves? What would radiohead (and you can tell I love them becase I don't capitlize them - only they and the next band own that privelege) have to do to get me to stop buying albums? We may never know, if they keep up Hail To The Thief levels of quality.

low:
I think what distinguishes the bands here from the others I love are two things: The first is that they don't necessarily have the most broad palette, but whatever it is they do I don't mind hearing endless variations on it - in fact, I crave them like I crave air or water. And it's not that I'm planning on buying everything they've ever put out, but these are the bands that, when i'm considering buying something, say The Curtain Hits The Cast, for $28, these are the only bands where I am permitting myself to not hesitate or second guess myself. I just buy them. And I never, ever, regret it. low possesses a different species of joy than New Order, more rigourous and litrugical, but it is joy nonetheless.

-----

I'd be voting for Galactus, myself (I mean, come on - he's the Devourer Of Worlds).

"It seriously feels like you're being attacked by some sort of comedy wolverine."

It's been up for a while, but if you haven't read Something Awful's take on a movie about midget vampires then really, what do you do with your day?

I really like the idea of the Stylus Singles Jukebox, especially now that they've tightened the focus to three people.

"Hopefully all these miserable fuckers like Staind and Creed will go out of the window."

I don't think I've ever admired Elton John before. I mean, his choice on what to replace them with (Kings Of Leon, The Darkness), doesn't exactly light my fire, but the more people who call Creed 'fuckers' the better.

I love John Allison.

I was going to just link to the article that this leads to (which is quite good), but what can I say: I'm a sucker for cheap lesbian humour.

Might as well try this...

I love living in science fiction.

And for the record: I have yet to hear 'Fix Up Look Sharp' (or any Dizzee Rascal - if the Streets is any indicator, I'll finally hear it and love it about a year after everyone has moved on), but I fully concur with Nick on the Lumidee single. That bone-arid beat and those echoey vocals... I guess I should track down some ESG now, as I understand if you like the one you'd like the other, and they have a whole album of that stuff.

"In related news, I've added a link to Fractionals; I have no idea who he is but everytime I Google my own name his blog comes up as having quoted me, so he deserves a link."

That's good old Nick Southall talking. I always get slightly embarrassed when someone I don't know links me, because now I have to try to produce, you know, content. Good to know that Google only registers my presence as a raving fanboy, though.

Finally, some non-violent movies.

Was fascinated to find that over at Stylus they'd done a 'Playing God' on Primal Scream's Vanishing Point, which is ripe for it. But it seems like he's stripped most of what I would have kept away and kept what I would have gotten rid of.

Great article on Coleridge. One of the echoes of The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner that isn't mentioned is that ghastly ghost ship from Watchmen.

Perhaps unsurpsiingly, the best post-blackout return was by TMFTML. Yes, we forgot he was in quotation mode.

Just posted an entry, which, diary-x informs me, was 666 words.

He's running out of Hentai games, so Zach Parsons is moving on to something worse: horrible live action Japanese porn.

Ah, that explains it. It's the Red Meat Construction Set!

Bizarre - seeing Red Meat plug Stylus, let alone my favorite writers therein, is a bit odd.

Finally someone calls the New Pornographers on the hype. They're okay, and I don't hate them, but they're really not that great. Same goes for Manitoba, quite frankly.

Wednesday's Emotional Setup: Happy Music For Happy People

So last night, before getting to bed at an unseemly hour (especially considering everything I have to do today), I listened once again to what may be, at this point in time, my favorite album of the year - Mogwai's superlative and lovely Happy Songs For Happy People. I jotted down some impressions while listening to it, and while they have been edited for spelling and grammar, they are otherwise unretouched.

'Hunted By A Freak': Those peaks, strings and organ and guitars, extending over vocoder blurbles (of which Mogwai are one of the few proper users in modern music) upwards into infinity. Great opener. As moving as older Mogwai but not as loud or harsh, a tendancy that is rampant on this album.

'Moses? I Amn't': Doomy late-night ambience of bass fuzz and strings, becalmed like a whale corpse. As, say, a single it would make no sense and probably be boring, but in this perfectly-paced album it fits.

'Kids Will Be Skeletons': Wafting in where earlier incarnations would have stomped. Finally Mogwai return to the field where they broke ground with 'Helicon 1' and expand on it. Again, moving upwards, and strangely optimistic.

'Killing All The Flies': More vocoder - almost no real voices on this album. How different would this be if there were? Would it be a pop song? Finally a noiseburst, and it's all the more glorious for having kept us waiting. But just one. Restraint seems to be a hallmark of this new Mogwai. Again, while the brutality of earlier Mogwai is (very) good in it's own way, here we have a return to the endless uplift of 'Helicon 1'. But just a short one.

'Boring Machines Disturbs Sleep': The pace of this album, after Come On Die Young and even Rock Action didn't really fit their songs, is amazing. Starts out as atonality, albeit not as harsh as 'With Portfolio'. and then - is that voices? Can't quite make out what they're saying. But still atonal. Some harshness to balance things a bit.

'Ratts Of The Capital': Oh, that they would have put (old, Matador compilation filler) 'Hugh Dallas' in here instead. But they didn't. not that this is bad - but 'Hugh Dallas' would have been a perfect center for Happy Music For Happy People to coalesce around. Same sadness, same restraint, but one instance of audible vocals on the album (Is the night so bad/Were we so bad today?/I only know/I almost fell today would have fit perfectly). Instead it gets this, lovely but not as lovely as '2 Rights Make 1 Wrong' from the last album. The noisy bit a bit like the end of 'My Father My King'. Not bad, but as the one longform piece here I was expecting it to be the center, and it's just sort of sturm und drang. Initially disquieting, but all that meant was that I had to recalibrate my expectations of what I get from a Mogwai album. Will disappoint those who want another Young Team, but Mogwai have moved on.

'Golden Porsche': Like 'Secret Pint' after a good cry. I love that Mogwai's drummer only seems to know 3-4 tricks but that they work every time. Again that repeated piano chord, going up and up and up... The album title may be ironic, but this is still Mogwai's most uplifting work. For the first time I don't get any sense of specificity from their work, however. As long as it's this lovely that's not really a complaint.

'I Know You Are But What Am I?': Now, finally a repeated chord (again on piano) that points down. No guitars, but you don't really notice the first time. Measured and strangely demanding, as if waiting for a response. The calmer relative of 'Sine Wave'. Again, buried anger. Slowing the pace for the grand finale.

'Stop Coming To My House': And grand it is: like the second part of 'I Know You Are..', now rising, through waves of static, until finally the whole thing just crashes together, coming apart in the atmosphere, a moment of pure transport. Ends with just that mournful series of bleeps as the guitars feed back and the drums slowly disappear from sight.

Nick Southall said it best about this album: "they've gained a level of subtlty and control over the nuances of calm that's added dimensions to their sound." Enough bands, including older Mogwai, focus on sprawl and epic and space. Let them continue to turn out perfectly formed miniatures, forty-minute pocket movements, as long as they're this good at it.

-----

I love Nick Southall.

I'm not exactly the man's biggest fan, and I question whether he's really doing this for the right reason or just out of sheer bloody-mindedness, but way to go, Jean.

New journal post.

Martin Amis on, well, rough porn.

Absolutely amazing. It feeds in 20 radio stations, processes, combines and distills them, and what do you get? Quasi-random bursts and noise and occasional ghostly voices. Awesome.

Clinton hatred: The defining force in American politics right now?

New journal entry, now with extra hangover.

Great Photoshop Phriday this week.

Market that niche, boys.

Nintendo temporarily halts Gamecube production. On the one hand, Iwata makes some good points. On the other, please don't let it go the way of the dreamcast.

Sigh.

My horoscope for my birthday:


"This week could be exceptionally soul-crushing, especially if you finally complete work on that Soul Crusher."

But I promise I can change, baby.

Glenn McDonald on Harry Potter. It'd be great if that article somehow made it's way to J.K. Rowling's inbox, because if books six and seven are actually like this... Words fail me.

Go to Achewood right now, go to the Variety Hour, and download "Ray's Theme Song". It's great.

Huh? That doesn't seem like a good idea.

TMFTML may be pinned down by work today, but they've left us with a beaut: both an interesting article on Joyce's Ulysses and, even better, the original decision allowing it into America, which is a joy to read. For example:


"In respect of the recurrent emergence of the theme of sex in the minds of his characters, it must always be remembered that his locale was Celtic and his season Spring."

Awesome, massive reorganization of Freaky Trigger. Pitchfork's recent reorg pales in comparison. I've liked FT, but now it looks absolutely crucial - as long as their non-music blogs are as good as their music one.

The Fuck?

Wednesday's Emotional Setup: Dishes/Cool Your Boots

There is one thing I like about postmodernism. Generally I consider the whole thing nothing more than a haven of excessive relativism, pseudo-profundity and bad writing (although there are certainly exceptions), but there is one quality of postmodern thought that really appeals to me. They, of all movements, have finally properly embraced contradiction.

I'm not going to bother to get into a whole backload of theory, but suffice it to say that, as you may have noticed, our minds tend to work in fairly contradictory ways. The reason Orwell's doublespeak was so horrifying and prophetic was that the human mind is more than capable of holding two conflicting thoughts at once, and even believing firmly in each. Now, doublespeak is dangerous only because one of the two things you are asked to affirm is false, and the type of things you believe is carefully manipulated by the government for their own ends. Thus it is, suprise, bad.

There are cases, however, where the matter you deal with is fairly slippery, and there is no one truth about it. Lots of things. Often big things (life, music, etc.). And so the capability, not to believe things so that they cancel each other out, but to recognize the truth in each, can be very valuable.

My favorite musical example is two of my favorite songs: Pulp's 'Dishes' and Ride's 'Cool Your Boots'. Musically they are quite distinct: 'Dishes' is the hurricane's eye of Pulp's This Is Hardcore, the calm centre that the psychosis of the rest of the album swirls around. It's a domestic picture of a guy who would like to make this water wine/But I've got to get these dishes dry. In short, it's a bit of a celebration of mundanity. The couplet I've got some matches if you ever need a light/I'll read you a story, if it helps you sleep at night is, in my opinion, terribly romantic. Jarvis is singing a quiet, peaceful song (both sonically and lyrically) about not being able to do everything, about not being any sort of star. And the climax, and relevant part for our discussion, is this:

And I

I'm not worried

That I will never

Touch the stars

'Cause stars belong up in heaven

And the earth is where we are

And aren't you happy just to be alive

You've got no cross to bear, not tonight

'Cool You Boots', on the other hand, has a whole bunch of other adjectives that could be applied to it, and to Ride's post-shoegazer album Going Blank Again as a whole: dense, swirling, pounding, charged, and so on. 'Cool Your Boots' doesn't occupy a position of importance on the album the way 'Dishes' does, by virtue of the fact that Going Blank Again isn't really telling a story the way This Is Hardcore is. But it is still a great song, employing all of the adjectives listed above. It's got a sample from "Withnail & I", some great glassy keyboard sounds in the outro, and it rages for about six minutes without wearing out it's welcome. In many ways it's an opposite to 'Dishes'. And then there's this:

You smile for yesterday

I think I'm in the way

You seem concerned

And say I should slow down

But how can I see stars

If my feet are on the ground?

An opposite response to 'Dishes', in fact it could be a response to 'Dishes' if not for time, space, and a bunch of other factors. The point is, there is something in each song, and each sentiment, that I indentify with and strongly believe in. And they don't cancel each other out, but they definitely don't work with each other either. And there's nothing wrong with that.

-----

Gasp! Is it, already, another new entry at the journal? It is! Expect this week's WES later today. As in when I wake up.

Good for them. Now could someone please remind Dubya about the separation of church and state?

sigh

Even if I don't agree with all assessments (i.e. Phantom Power is quite good), the Church Of Me Buyer's Guide is hugely entertaining.

Clevinger's got a very interesting post up at Nuklear Power about Alan Moore and etc.

"Some dreams, I must admit, are really, really stupid."

Josh has been finding even more "my god, is the States really doing that?" stuff than I have recently.

Oh joy, oh rapture: Filthy on Gigli.

New entry at the journal.

Beautiful.

I know this sounds like something from a Warren Ellis story, and so does he, as he linked it. But it's real.

Good post at boingboing here from a few days ago.

Christopher Hitchens kicks a man while he's down. Well, dead, actually.

Forgot to mention; I'm off at Mom's for her huge 50th party - should be getting pretty drunk tonight. Not back to normal until maybe Monday, possibly Tuesday.

Incredible new War Against Silence; although I haven't gone through as much recently as Glenn has, some of what he's saying definitely resonates with my current purging of my record collection.

Aww, and the Pope had been doing so well at catching up with the rest of the world. I'm willing to bet the motive force for this one came from Ratzinger. Still depressing.