The pains of being george washington’s penis

George Washington’s Penis (aka Brooklyn’s The Pains of Being Pure at Heart) headlined London’s tiny Buffalo Bar on Friday, effectively vaulting from one of the best band names ever to possibly the worst. Still… it was a secret gig and as a mere interloper*, I probably shouldn’t complain.

With no setlist, they churned through a variety of old and new tracks, including Lou Reed’s ‘Metal Machine Music’. Touring guitarist Christoph Hochheim (of The Depreciation Guild) was both a welcome addition to the lineup and a delightful piece of indie eye candy — if only he’d come out of the shadows a little more often. And the encore, ‘Kurt Cobain’s Cardigan’ (as seen below in Athens last year) was immense. Well played, George Washinton’s Penis.

*Frontman Kip announced quite sweetly that he could literally thank every punter by name, which could’ve been awkward as I was there under a friend’s name — one that just happened to work for boys & girls. (Cheers Alex!)

E from eels learns quantum mechanics

Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives is a brilliant 2007 film that follows Mark Everett (aka E from Eels) as he traces his late father, Hugh Everett III, from Princeton PhD to the Pentagon, until his death as a businessman at 51.

Hugh Everett III’s 1957 paper on parallel universes was barely acknowledged until decades later, with many physicists now proclaiming themselves as ‘Everettian’ (or not). His work on quantum mechanics is considered as groundbreaking as Einstein’s theory of relativity and yet he died without knowing fame nor, as E explains, his family:

He was in his own parallel universe. He was a physical presence, like the furniture, sitting there jotting down crazy notations at the dining room table night after night. I think he was deeply disappointed that he knew he was a genius but the rest of the world didn’t know it.

By meeting his father’s colleagues, friends and students, the self-proclaimed kid who flunked out of high-school algebra comes to understand the basics of his father’s theory of many worlds – and thanks to cute illustrations and simplified explanations, the audience can too. (For a basic idea of parallel universes, think Donnie Darko or Gwyneth Paltrow’s dual existence in Sliding Doors).

At one charming point, E meets a lanky Princeton physicist who had devoted his academic life to proving Everett’s theory after finding an ancient copy in a used bookstore while studying at Berkeley. He is visibly overwhelmed to meet the son of the man who he had respected for so long and gushes like a groupie - which may lead E to his conclusion that his father was like a ‘rock star of the physics world’.

While exploring his dad’s belongings – which had been boxed and long-forgotten since his death – E finds a cache of Dictaphone recordings, which give him further insight into the man he barely knew. Listening to the tapes in an empty hotel room, he even finds a little bit of himself.

With an Eels soundtrack and beautiful production, Parallel Lives, Parrallel Worlds is a fascinating look at physics, fatherhood and of course, E. And the best part? It’s available free in the UK on BBC iPlayer until next week.

Or check the preview below:

You can also read more about the theory and previously unseen works from the Everett archives at the Parallel Lives, Parallel Worlds PBS site.

Exploring the cove

  
I’ve just finished watching ‘The Cove’ and suggest you do too. Unless you have seen the controversial Academy Award-winning documentary already, in which case you’ll probably agree that herding thousands of dolphins into a secluded cove in Taiji, Japan, before harpooning them to death is both brutal and unnecessary.

Taiji, in Wakayama, is often regarded as the birthplace of Japanese whaling, with evidence revealing coastal hunts as far back as the 1600s. The picturesque small town boasts various monument to cetaceans, including a rather grand whale museum, as well as restaurants serving both whale and dolphin meat. Every year, Taiji fishermen herd more than 20,000 dolphins into a small cove where representatives from all over the country  wait to select a small amount for the world’s marine parks and aquariums. The remaining dolphins are moved to the now-infamous cove for slaughter. Due to increasing international scrutiny, the shallows of the cove are now largely covered by bright tarpaulins, which merely highlight the sea of blood beyond.

Despite testing dangerously high in mercury levels (hello jeremy piven!), Taiji dolphin meat is distributed to shops around Japan (above right, selling for a mere 200 yen per cut) and quite often falsely labelled as other seafood or whale meat to increase sales. In their defence, the Taiji fishermen are quick to assert that their catch is well within IWC limits, which may have led the activists to focus on the issue of mercury in the meat, rather than the barbaric manner in which the dolphins are killed.

With a trailer that’s more spy thriller than animal rights crusade and ongoing distribution problems in Japan, it’s quite easy to dismiss the film as some sort of anti-Japan propaganda flick. There’s been all sorts of responses which question the accuracy of the film’s claims, but no-one can doubt the vivid red sea, nor the footage of dolphins flailing in the shallows while blood trails behind them.

One Japanese new report shows a rather unbiased look at the cause and the foreign protesters, after which a commentator declared:

There is a clash between culture and emotion.

I fully understand the desire to maintain cultural traditions, but after viewing the film, the activists should probably play on Japanese emotions and seek wider support from within Japan itself. More so than just one man standing in the crowded Shibuya crossing with a tv screen showing the atrocities, they need to make Japanese youth aware of what happens in Taiji and ideally, inspire them to take action. Casting aside the ongoing issue of ‘scientific’ whaling, Japan is, after all, the same nation that bestowed residency on Tama-chan, a bearded Arctic seal that turned up in Tokyo’s Tama River in 2003. By appealing to the country’s love of cute creatures, there may be  some way to maintain cultural traditions while finding a more humane solution to the culls. …Hell, anything would be more effective than this two-minute celebrity-filled PSA which, while great in theory, pretty much just preaches to the choir:

Although when Tony Soprano tells you his friend doesn’t belong in captivity, you can’t help but want to do as he tells you…

If you don’t have time to watch the film, try photojournalist Boyd Harnell’s chilling article from 2007, Eyewitness to Slaughter in Japan’s Killing Coves, which reads much like the film unfolds, or check the Guardian’s photo gallery.

Photos: Dolphin meat from Aisha_n, Meiji-era whalers from Julian Cochrane. Robert Gilhooly has a wealth of Taiji photos here.