Trent Reznor, This is why we love you.

"I’m not saying offering things for free or pay-what-you-can is wrong. I’m saying my personal feeling is that my album’s not a dime. It’s not a buck. I made it as well as I could, and it costs 10 bucks, or go fuck yourself.”

From Neil Young's book, speaking of Crazy Horse

"This is very important. Don't spook the Horse. That is very essential to the success of any ride. The Horse will head for the barn if it is spooked, and the music will continue but not have that magic that the Horse possesses. Any ride on the Horse must not have a destination. History has shown that the best way to spook the Horse is to tell it what to do or where to go or, even worse, how to get there. You must not speak directly to the Horse or ever look the Horse in the eyes until the ride is over and the Horse is secured in the barn. It is okay to talk to the Horse directly, but care must be taken to have respect for the muse when discussing anything with the Horse. The Horse and the muse are very good friends. Disrespect for the muse will piss off the Horse, and possibly vice versa, although that is hard to prove. The Horse has met no equal, although there undoubtedly is an equal to the Horse out there somewhere. The Horse knows this well and will not tolerate anyone who is overly complimentary to the point of excluding other friends of the muse in a misguided attempt to gain the Horse's favor. That is absolutely not the thing to do, as it makes the Horse think, and that has a bad effect generally. The Horse has a voracious appetite. The songs the Horse likes to consume are always heartfelt and do not need to have anything fancy associated with them. The Horse is very suspicious of tricks. Keeping these simple guidelines in place is always a good idea when approaching the Horse for any reason."

-Neil Young Waging Heavy Peace

After seeing The Horse on the tour immediately following his writing this, I see exactly what he means.

The Real Problem With Turn-Based RPG Combat Is Mages

sad but true

Another good day for music

New Okkervil River full stream

Oh to have been here

And finally the Replacements' full set (welcome back)

Dr. Venture

FTW

Vegas in the 70s

via Dangerous Minds

Stream the new Belle and Sebastian Collection

via the Guardian

In which I leave town for 3 days

and apparently everything happens:
New Spiritualized Video
NPR first listen of the new Neko Case
Tears for Fears cover Arcade Fire (this one is well worth your time)
New Nine Inch Nails 
and a Beavis and Butthead mod for Civ 5

ugh.

Video Game Criticism vs Review

These are just a few thoughts on the recent Sarkeesian video.  Last week I made the mistake of wandering into the comments on Kotaku surrounding the latest Damsel in Distress video.  It seems that as a community those of us who play games have a very difficult time separating a review of a game from a cultural critique of a game.  The mechanics of a game can be excellent, the plot engaging and the characters well developed while the game simultaneously possesses cultural signifiers that may be troubling to a portion of the players.  In fact as we demand greater complexity of games, we can hope that they become more culturally aware and complex as well.  We are used to thinking of games in terms of the review--an expert giving the reader context for their experience and enjoyment of the game.  In this context negative comments can easily make or break a title depending on the reviewer/publication.  Now that our games are growing up and ourselves along with them, we are beginning to see a public, academic and non-academic analysis of these games.  This analysis can only help us understand the games we play and help designers understand what it is we want from them.  Just as in literature or film, a critical essay or in this case video is just one person's analysis of the cultural impact of a text/film/game/etc.  It would seem that the correct response or the response that will help games grow the most would be a well reasoned critique from one's own perspective.  Where does one disagree? Why? and so forth.  It is difficult to write about culture, especially cultural objects that we feel strongly about; but we must separate our love of the thing for the place it holds in our lives from the unconscious messages it may be contributing to our shared cultural spaces.  Personally, I have my own objections to Sarkeesian's videos in that I think it is quite difficult to extract the role of the female in video games from the role of the female in geek culture as a whole (something she personally experienced with the launch of this series).  But then again we have to start the discussion somewhere...more to follow.

A day for links

GTA V multiplayer looks perfect

New Ghibli trailer with subtitles

8-bit Blade Runner (man I miss adventure games)

Prince has a Twitter Account

And a new song to go along with it.

Stockhausen's Lectures on Modern Music

via Dangerous Minds

Oh to be at these shows.

via CoS

This just made my day

Zeppelin Live at The Royal Albert 1970 full show

Mountain Goats at Newport Folk

Some video and full audio

Beck at Osheaga

Playing Tainted Love

Thank you vice

narrowly avoided the band in questions at Bonnaroo this year.

Kubrick's Favorite Films

via BFI