Josh Reisner

MS MR: Hurricane

See Poliça if you possibly can. I saw them on Saturday with Leah Lin and, just, wow.

Also: they have two drummers. What’s better than one really good drummer? Two, of course!

Turn this song way up on your computer’s stereo and you’ll hopefully get a bit of the live effect.

Poliça: Lay Your Cards Out

I’m not sure what I was expecting from MySpace (newly Myspace), but it quite certainly was not this. Am I wrong to be impressed?

JJAMZ – Heartbeat (I can’t think of a better song for this venue.)

Thanks for the tip Ksenya.

I have long held the position that no one ever should use a “555″ phone number in any movie. Look, if you’re going to spend over $1,000 on the production, let alone millions and millions, then spending $50 to get some random phone number so that the viewer isn’t totally reminded they’re watching a movie has got to be worth it.

But now with the advent of free phone numbers from Google Voice, there’s really no excuse. Might as well get the actor to record a voicemail greeting. And if some weirdo leaves a message, how hilarious would it be to then be able to blog the audio on your movie’s website?

I recently made some nice updates to Jessica and Erik’s Phantom Limb website. It includes new videos made by them and edited by Sienna Urich, as well as a lot of new photography.

Delhi is really wonderful, I hope I can go back there soon. When I arrived, I wasn’t ready for straight-up misinformation as a negotiating tactic, as in Oh! That hotel just burned down a week ago, let me take you to my brother’s hotel!. I got the hang of it eventually.

I saw the Lotus Temple (above, and below), and the “Baby Taj,” also pictured below. I’m looking forward to going back and getting better photos.

I came to Bogmalo Beach in Goa for a few days and ended up staying over a month. The whole time I was at Sarita’s Guest House, which I liked a lot. Goa is known for its rave scene, but Bogmalo isn’t like that at all. It’s very small and relaxed and easy. It’s right near the airport and a naval base, which was exciting because in the evening fighter jets would take off one after the other. Also there were fireworks pretty often. The only annoying thing was all the terrible 90s cover bands that would play at the bars. Luckily they were not at Sarita’s.

I made friends with a guy named Karan who worked at the hotel, and we hung out a lot. Also I met some Americans there (Ross and Rigel) and we had a good time touring Old Goa and going on a spice tour.

Even though the internet was not terrific, it was a good opportunity to catch up on work and to do this New York World site with just launched last week.

I did not do any yoga or meditation or anything, and yet the experience was completely relaxing.

Things I should have photographed:

• Ross and Rigel
• Karan demonstrating the proper use of the boogie board
• The elderly couple I met at the beginning

A site I’ve been working on recently launched: it’s a blog for the Columbia School of Journalism called New York World. The project was managed by Jeff Tancil and designed by Britta Frahm.

If you’re interested in New York City politics, I recommend you check it out!

Wikitravel says that Luxor is the ‘hassle capital of the Egypt,’ and I believe it. Touts will follow you down the street, trying to sell calèche rides, or little stone pyramids, or hash. Kids zoom around on motorcycles, honking pretty much the whole time. Even if the street is otherwise empty.

That said, there’s a lot to see there. Phil and I went to Luxor temple, the temple at Karnak, and the Valley of the Kings. I was pleased to see my alma mater leading the archeological restoration effort. I was told they are “good people.”

Pretty much in every temple there’s a guy who has one corner roped off, and for a tip he’ll give you a ‘tour’ which amounts to him telling you the most obvious possible facts about the monument, like counting off for you the things he sees. “One, two, three, four bees.” It’s easy to keep a sense of humor about it though since the money involved is so low and there’s no haggling, they accept anything. The people selling stuff, on the other hand, are more tiresome. With the revolution the tourist traffic has nearly dried up.

Phil and I had a funny moment riding our bikes back after visiting the Valley of the Kings. The place was closing, and all the guys selling bric-a-brac passed us on their motorcycles and waved. It reminded me of something I couldn’t put my finger on, but Phil thought of it: the sheepdog and the wolf clocking out of work in Looney Tunes.

We stayed at the Boomerang Hotel which was wonderful. On our last day I went to the barber across the street for an overdue haircut. I was glad for the experience, but it wasn’t such a good haircut.

Things I should have photographed:

• Our calèche ride
• The Colossi of Memnon (how did I not photograph this? we stopped there)
• Audio recording of the call to prayer guy near the hotel
• Erin and the French and Swiss people we met
• The kids on the motorcycles
• The koala painting at the Boomerang Hotel

From the Twin Shadow website.

I had no idea this was a thing! When I first saw the image of Die Antwoord that prompted my last post I credited them on originality, composition and execution. But today I checked out the Twin Shadow website and it made me second-guess the originality part. Here are some more “stoppie kisses” from Google image search:

I tried to find an awesome Twin Shadow song for this post but none was forthcoming.

Doesn’t that picture above remind you of a Hefner album?