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Thursday, June 23, 2011
Long Beach Week: Khmer Down To Cambodia Town
Like Los Angeles, Long Beach is a pretty diverse community itself. After all, its motto is "The International City."
Long Beach is home of the largest Cambodian population in the United States, many of whom came here in the late 1970s as refugees escaping the genocide brought on by the tyrannical rule of the Khmer Rouge party. Nearly four years ago, on July 3, 2007, the Long Beach City Council officially designated a one-mile stretch of Anaheim Street between Atlantic and Junipero avenues as "Cambodia Town."
Unlike the designated ethnic communities in Los Angeles, there is no sign welcoming one to "Cambodia Town," but the sight of Khmer script (pictured right), murals (pictured above) and the presence of markets, restaurants, mechanic shops, jewelry stores, money remittance offices and video stores (many of them referencing places in Cambodia) were abundant.
After The Militant got off his Blue Line train at Anaheim Station, it was a simple matter of walking eastward on that street to explore.
His first stop was Kim Long Market (pictured left), just a couple blocks east of Long Beach Boulevard. It was a colorful, bustling supermarket which had the requisite produce, meat, fish, snakes, canned goods and small to-go food section typical of many ethnic markets.
Though it was a Cambodian market and most of the clientele were Khmer-speaking, the products were pan-Asian in nature: Items were imported from Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, China, Japan and other countries, though hardly any from Cambodia.
But the Cambodian community doesn't exist in a vacuum. Long Beach is home to people from those above ethnicities after all, and likewise the country of Cambodia itself is influenced by its Asian neighbors.
In many ways, Cambodia Town is similar to its cousin 25 miles to the north, Los Angeles' Thai Town: Both encompass a single commercial street, both feature large, successful New Year festivals in April. Of course, Thais and Cambodians share many similarities -- similar basic customs, a related language/alphabet and Theravada Buddhism.
The food is similar. In fact, most Cambodia Town restaurants advertise themselves as "Thai-Cambodian Cuisine." Generally speaking, Cambodian food is the slightly-less spicy relative of Thai cuisine.
Speaking of which, all this walking has gotten The Militant kinda hungry...
The Militant found his food stop after a mile of walking: Siem Reap Restaurant, on Anaheim at Rose Ave. It had gotten a great reputation on Yelp, so The Militant figures it wouldn't be a bad choice at all.
The restaurant (named after the Cambodian city and province where the famous Angkor Wat ruins are located) was spacious and not very busy on this Thursday afternoon. A video screen playing a DVD of live Cambodian music and comedy performances was playing in the background. The Militant went on to order the amok trey, a seasoned fish and vegetable stew cooked inside a coconut, and a jackfruit shake. After telling the waitress it was his first time sampling Cambodian cuisine, he was also hooked up with a free pork and chicken soup and a small sample of sach ko angh - a beef skewer with papaya salad. It was all real good, and The Militant hopes to come back here again with some of his operatives!
Determined to walk the entire span of Cambodia Town (not to mention to walk off his lunch), he continued farther down Anaheim until Junipero Avenue, the easternmost end of the community. There stood the United Cambodian Community center (pictured left), a large building designed after traditional Khmer architecture.
On the windows of many of the businesses were many of the same posters promoting community events, like concerts, dance parties, fundraisers and even movie premieres, such as one that happened this week for the film, Rice Field Of Dreams, a documentary on the first Cambodian national baseball team (hey, they seem to bleed blue too).
The Militant had a great time exploring Cambodia Town, he hopes to return here again. You, too should Khmer and visit this place. Just take the (M) Blue Line down to Anaheim Station, and walk or bike east until Junipero Avenue (just a few blocks past Cherry Avenue). Or, you can take the Long Beach Transit lines 45 or 46 bus (Fare is $1.25).
2 comments:
- B.J. said...
Good ish, a project of mine revolves around this little stretch. I know that they eventually want to get one of those signs welcoming people there.
Also...a little outside of CambodiaTown on Pacific Coast Highway, Sophy's has some great beef jerky. On Anaheim, in front of the old United Cambodian Center building, there's a general good food place called the Dragon Cafe.
Anyhow, sort of self-promotion:
http://camchap.org/ - The Cambodian Community Archive located at the Historical Society of Long Beach
- June 26, 2011 at 6:53 AM
- Militant Angeleno said...
Brian: Thanks for the tip and the link! Will check out then next time he's in Cambodia Town. Very interesting info. Definitely the organization with the LB address must have been the catalyst. Many immigrant groups will be attracted to a place where one of their own has already established themselves. It's like humankind's community-building DNA at work!
Don't worry about self-promotion, if ya got something we can all benefit from, then bust it!
- June 27, 2011 at 2:06 AM


text:
Community Investments
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Throughout the year, Grinnell College makes smaller-scale donations in support of local non-profit organizations that plan programs and fundraising activities.
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subset: commoncrawl


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On this page you will find the solution to Lasting reminder crossword clue. This clue was last seen on New York Times September 23 2018 Crossword Answers In case the clue doesn't fit or there's something wrong please contact us.
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The High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC) is the primary archive for NASA's (and other space agencies') missions studying electromagnetic radiation from extremely energetic cosmic phenomena ranging from black holes to the Big Bang. Since its merger with the Legacy Archive for Microwave Background Data Analysis (LAMBDA) in 2008, the HEASARC archive contains data obtained by high-energy astronomy missions observing in the extreme-ultraviolet (EUV), X-ray, and gamma-ray bands, as well as data from space missions, balloons, and ground-based facilities that have studied the relic cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation in the sub-mm, mm and cm bands.
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text:
Our fourth Principle of Open Business is one which would be easy to mistake for a simply tactical implementation: Sharability.
Packaging knowledge for easy and open sharing both internally and externallyHere's an excerpt:
...Sharability is as much an organisational design principle as Networked Organisation since there must be a cultural/philosophical recognition of the value of sharing over hoarding.At the turn of the last decade I wrote a post called 2020 Vision in which I conclude: "By 2020 a person's worth will be valued by what they share, not what they keep. That may be the most significant shift of all."
The antithesis of an organisation built on the principle of Sharability is one which is built on the principle of Secrecy.
It's likely there will be one or two things about the way your organisation does or makes something which is unique, or at the very least so special that it gives you a perceived competitive advantage over rivals.
But, if you are honest, these very few special things are worthy only of pockets of secrecy – rather than the cultures of secrecy they are too often allowed to generate.
In such cultures the belief is that the competitive advantage is not in the best fit with the needs of the market, but in the delivery of the fastest first approximation.
Cultures driven by the principle of Sharability are more likely to value best fit over first approximation.
Being able to value sharing over hoarding is hard for many. It challenges long-cherished and assumed value centres such as 'ownership' tests the true value of 'intellectual property' and the often ingrained culture of 'not-invented-here'.
In Western business culture this aligns with a macho approach: I hunted it, I killed it, I eat it. But we know that isn't how we ever lived - and perhaps that tells us that its how we never should.


text: Responsibility of a leadloansgrju.com Related Articles 1 Accounting Organizational Structure 2 What Role Does an Accountant Play in Business Operations? 3 Strategic Role of a Chief Accountant 4 Accounting Job Description A leadloansgrju.com – sometimes called a controller's duties can vary depending upon the size financial operations and the number of people employed in the accounting department leadership and is instrumental in forming accounting strategies. A controller's role, especially in smaller companies, can include broad visionary responsibilities as well as hands-on management. Overall Accounting OversightA leadloansgrju.com is responsible for smaller companies, the controller may also perform cash management functions and oversee accounts payable separation of duties with regards to accounting functions to insure that there are checks and balances in the system.For instance cash disbursements, he should not be a signatory on the account; the owner, chief executive or chief financial officer should be required to sign all checks. Establishing and Executing ControlsA leadloansgrju.com accounting and financial procedures. This includes reviewing and approving all controller will often handle collections on invoices, especially ones that are 45 days to 60 days overdue.A leadloansgrju.com internal audits of the company. This includes keeping for examination.Financial Planning and Reportingleadloansgrju.coms in smaller companies credit and vendor agreements, as well as reviewing all financial contracts, financing agreements and insurance long-term financial strategizing. Unless a company has a CFO to provide the leadership for long-term financial planning this responsibility as well.In any case, she must provide crucial Financial reporting duties include preparing financial statements, balance sheets, cash flow reports, budgets, budget-to-actuals and financial projections.Financial Analysis and OpinionsIn addition leadloansgrju.com must be proficient in spreadsheet design that is often complex. While a CFO is responsible for finalizing financial policy, a controller's financial analysis skills are instrumental in helping to assess risk, analyze efficiency and inform policy decisions made by executive management.


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text:
1869 $1 MS66 Certification #21572799, PCGS #6962
Owner's Comments
Satiny golden gray gem surfaces exhibit sultry lustre and generous amounts of lively rose and pale electric blue iridescence. A stunning coin, and just a few tiny marks from perfection.
Expert Comments
Q. David BowersThe following narrative, with minor editing, is from my "Silver Dollars & Trade Dollars of the United States: A Complete Encyclopedia" (Wolfeboro, NH: Bowers and Merena Galleries, Inc., 1993).
Coinage Context
The silver situation: Domestic silver production increased many fold during the 1860s as Nevada's Comstock Lode reached high production. The metal, once scarce in the United States, now became plentiful, and Nevada mine owners and other Western producers pressured their political representatives to help find new markets.
Philadelphia Mint Liberty Seated dollars of 1869 and 1870 were minted in larger quantities than were any recent issues in the series. Willem states that the Mexican peso fell out of favor with Chinese merchants (due to a new tax in Mexico), and that the large business strike coinage of Liberty Seated dollars from 1869 onward was accomplished to provide coins for export to take advantage of the situation. (Willem, The United States Trade Dollar, pp. 50-51.) Â However, opinions differ on this (see immediately below).
Heavy coinage of dollars: The following is by R.W. Julian: (Created for inclusion in the present text, February 1992.)
The heavy coinage of silver dollars in the late 1860s can be shown to be the result of another imbalance in trade for silver. Prior to about 1868 the U.S. usually exported more silver than it produced and imported and there was little need for a dollar coinage. After that time, however, there was no other place for the excess silver to go and it was therefore coined into dollars, even though they did not circulate. It was a practical way to store silver with a readily known and guaranteed value. That some of these dollars did go to the Orient I again have no doubt, but I think that there was less than 25,000 annually and perhaps considerably less considering the ready availability of silver ingots in any purity desired.
The government did not coin dollars in the 1860s on its own account-except, perhaps, in small quantities for special purposes and those that wound up in government vaults, for disposal as late as the early 1960s, were simply flowbacks from the banking system. Some of the Liberty Seated bags, for example, might well have arrived at a Treasury vault in the 1880s or 1890s.
Hepburn in History of Currency in the United States, p.270, tells of the increased silver dollar coinage "chiefly due to the rich discoveries of Nevada," and goes on to say, "The coinage of silver dollars increased at once and from 1868 to 1872 ... practically all were exported." As chairman of the board of the Chase National Bank and former Comptroller of the Currency, he would seem to have been in a position to know what happened to those increased mintages of dollars. (Citation and commentary courtesy of Harty E. Salyards, M.D.)
Numismatic Information
Circulated grades: In circulated grades the 1869 is yet another prime issue in this decade of Philadelphia Mint rarities. As noted, most were exported.
Mint State grades: In Mint State, 1869 dollars are very rare, far rarer than Proofs, and are seldom encountered. Most high-grade coins are prooflike.
An anecdote: A prominent Eastern dealer, now deceased, was well known for his braggadocio and regaled me with the tale that his firm possessed a mint-sealed bag of Uncirculated dollars dated 1869. I asked to see them but was told that the coins were "in the vault" and could not be inspected. A year or two later, Edmund A. Rice, a well-known collector and dealer from Cranbury, New Jersey, was with me in this particular dealer's shop, and the dealer was endeavoring to dazzle me with stories of original mint rolls of 1955 Doubled Die cents he owned and to startle Mr. Rice by saying that he had thousands of crisp new-grade 1896 "Educational" $5 notes in his vaults; this being immediately after Rice tried to sell him one such note.
"I have had enough of your lies!" Rice exclaimed. "I will pay you one thousand dollars just to see a pack of such notes. Put up or shut up." The dealer demurred by saying he was too busy to get them from the vault, etc., and Rice departed from the store knowing he had put the wiseacre in his place.
Later, rumors surfaced that the firm with which the dealer was connected had a bag of 1871 dollars. Years later, I learned in confidence from an individual who had audited the firm's inventory that no bags of Mint State Liberty Seated dollars were ever owned by the company.
John W. Dannreuther may have heard similar comments concerning the 1869 dollar, for in an essay in John W. Highfill's Comprehensive U.S. Silver Dollar Encyclopedia he comments: "Date rumored to exist in hoards but I doubt if they exist."
The Salyards study: In The Gobrecht Journal, March 1986, Harry E. Salyards, M.D. contributed "Rarity of the 1869 Dollar," which told of his survey of 57 different coins which appeared in 128 auction sales, 1975-1985. He noted that despite the fact that 423,700 business strikes were made as opposed to just 600 Proofs, 36 Proofs appeared in comparison to only 23 business strikes. The latter broke down to eight Uncirculated coins and 14 in lesser grades. The lowest grade seen was Choice VF.
Business strikes:
1-3. Normal Date: Breen-5481. At least three obverse die varieties are known, distinguished from each other by minor variations in the position of the date, not by date size or other dramatic differences. Cf. "1869 Seated Dollars," David H. Cohen, The Gobrecht Journal, November 1984. At least one coin seen has the reverse misaligned 15° to the right from normal. (Lawrence N. Rogak, "Rotated Reverses on Liberty Seated Dollars." Article in The Gobrecht Journal, July 1990. Also see 1859-S.)
Dies prepared: Obverse: Unknown; Reverse: Unknown
Business strike mintage: 423,700; Delivery figures by day: February 6: 4,500; February 18: 11,000; March 2: 12,000; March 5: 10,000; March 10: 14,900; March 26: 16,700; May 6: 14,800;June 24: 8,800; July 6: 12,000; July 13: 14,700; July 15: 10,400; August 27: 16,000; August 28: 9,000; September 1: 14,800; September 6: 4,300; September 22: 15,700; September 28: 7,300; October 14: 10,000; October 15: 12,000; October 18: 16,000; October 19: 11,000; October 29: 29,000; November 11: 11,000; November 13: 10,000; November 15: 10,000; November 19: 13,000; November 22: 9,000; November 29: 12,500; December 10: 4,000; December 15: 11,000; December 20: 14,900; December 28: 15,000; December 29: 15,000; December 30: 12,000; December 31: 11,400.
Estimated quantity melted: Unknown
Characteristics of striking: Varies; obverse often sharp; reverse often with slight weakness at top of shield and top of eagle's dexter wing.
Known hoards of Mint State coins: None (except for unsubstantiated boast of one Mint bag)
1869 silver dollars are rare today despite their relatively high mintage. This date is especially elusive in Mint State.
Additional Information
Director Pollock Comments (The Mint directorships of Pollock and Linderman were intertwined during this era. Terms were as follows: James Pollock, May 1861 to September 1866; William Millward, October 1866 to April 1867 (he was not confirmed by Congress); Dr. Henry Richard Linderman, April 1867 to April 1869; Pollock again, May 1869 to March 1873; Linderman again, April 1873 to December 1878.) In the Annual Report of the Director of the Mint, 1869, Director Pollock noted that specie payments were still under suspension, and that gold and silver both traded at a premium in relation to paper notes. He then proposed the following:
"Now if we reduce the weight of our silver coins so that their intrinsic value shall be below the market rate of silver bullion, make the legal tender of small extent, and guard by express Act of Congress against an over issue, we shall have a silver currency substituted for the flimsy paper of the denominations less than one dollar."
Toward this end, he had pattern silver coins prepared in the denominations of 10-cents, 25-cents, and 50-cents, of lower weight, called Standard Silver issues, (These lightweight coins had the inscription STANDARD SILVER on the coins and are not to be confused with the generic term "standard silver" often used for regular silver dollars of the era.) but nothing became of the proposal, nor was it his intention to extend it to the dollar denomination. Pattern dollars of 1869 having STANDARD 1 DOLLAR (or STANDARD SILVER 1 DOLLAR) as the reverse denomination, listed by Adams-Woodin as their No. 863, incompletely described following R. Coulton Davis' listing, have never turned up.
"1869-S" Dollars Contemplated
Four pairs of obverse dies were shipped to San Francisco but no 1869-8 coins resulted.
Christian Gobrecht
38.10 millimeters
26.73 grams
90% Silver, 10% Copper
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text:
GRIME: A Primer
director's cut, The Wire, April 2005
by Simon Reynolds
emerged from London's pirate radio underground. Its immediate precursor
was 2step (a/k/a UK garage), which at the turn of the millennium broke
into the UK pop mainstream in a massive way. 2step had been shaped by
the "feminine pressure" for singalong melodies and wind-your-waist
grooviness. Grime arose as a backlash against this crossover sound, a
violent swing in the scene's inner gender-pendulum from yin to yang. Out
went 2step's high-pitched diva vocals, sensual swing, and sexed-up
amorousness; in came gruff rapping, stiff electro-influenced beats, and
raucous aggression.
have been part of the pirate radio tradition for at least fifteen
years, going back through garage and jungle to the early days of
hardcore rave. By the end of the Nineties, however, the MCs were moving
beyond their customary restricted role as party "hosts" and sidekicks to
the DJ. Instead of gimmicky vocal licks and praise-the-selector
exhortations, they began to rap actual verses: initially, extended takes
on traditional boasts about their own mic' skills, but soon getting
into narrative, complicated metaphors and rhyme schemes, vicious dissing
of rivals, and even introspective soliloquies. The MC's rise swiftly
eclipsed the DJ, hitherto the most prominent figure on rave flyers or
the main designated artist on record releases. 2001 was the turning
point, when MCs shunted selectors out of the spotlight. So Solid Crew
broke into the pop charts, and the underground seethed with similar
collectives modeled on the clan/dynasty structures that prevail in
American hip hop and Jamaican dancehall.
from the transitional sound known as "garage rap," grime really defined
itself as a distinct genre when the first tracks appeared that were
designed purely as "MC tools"--riddims for rappers to ride. These
grimestrumentals were largely sourced in the electro diaspora--
post-"Sleng Teng" ragga, Miami bass, New Orleans bounce, Dirty South
crunk, and "street rap" producers like Swizz Beats. Like these genres,
grime doesn't go in much for sampling but prefers synths, typically with
cheap 'n' nasty timbres that vaguely evoke the Eighties and often seem
to be influenced by pulp-movie video soundtracks, videogame musik, and
even mobile phone ring-tones. But in grime's textured beats and complex
programming you can also hear the imprint of the jungle that most of
these late teens/early twenties producers grew up on, alongside
folk-memory traces of gabba and techno. Sometimes, listening, you might
imagine you can hear uncanny echoes of postpunk-era
electro-primitivists such as The Normal, DAF, Cabaret Voltaire, or the
calligraphic exquisiteness of Japan, Thomas Leer, and The Residents.
from the period when 2step ruled the Top 10, but also inspired by
enviously watching the living-large of American rap superstars, Grime
feels a powerful drive to invade the mainstream and get "paid in full."
Pirate radio, a broadcast medium with a potentially vast audience,
encourages this grandiosity. One peculiar byproduct of grime's ambition
is the scene's craze for DVD releases, like Risky Roadz and Lord of the Mic,
containing documentary material with live footage. It's as if the scene
is DIY-ing the sort of TV coverage it feels it deserves but isn't
getting. Yet while some of top MCs are being groomed for stardom by
major label-owned boutique labels, the day-to-day reality of grime is
grafting to get by in a narrowcast culture. Selling 500 copies of a
track is considered a good result. The way Grime operates--small-run
vinyl-only pressings and CD-R "mix-tapes", often sold directly to
specialist stores--has a surprising amount in common with the
micro-cultures familiar in the pages of The Wire *, such as
noise, free folk, improv, and extreme metal. Like these genres, grime
is what Chris Cutler would call an "engaged" culture, with a high ratio
of performers to consumers. These aspiring MCs, DJs and producers have a
deeper understanding of what constitutes skill and innovation in their
scene. Grime even has an improv element with its freestyles and MC
battles. There's a glorious ephemerality to the way MCs riff
off-the-cuff lyrics during pirate sessions, although fans have always
tape-recorded the shows and some are now getting archived on the web.
those globally dispersed micro-cultures, Grime is geographically
concentrated. It's popular across London and has outposts in other
multiracial UK cities, but its absolute heartland consists of a few
square miles in that part of East London not served by the Tube. In
truth, it's a parochial scene, obsessed with a sense of place, riven by
internecine conflicts and territorial rivalries (the intense
competitiveness being one reason grime's so creative). Still, despite
this insularity, Grime has never been easier for "outsiders" to
investigate, thanks to 1xtra (the BBC's digital radio station for UK
"urban" music, http://www.bbc.co.uk/1xtra/garage/; check especially the
weekly shows by Cameo and Richie Vibe Vee), the trend for pirates like
Rinse FM to go online as well broadcast terrestrially, mail-order via
companies like Rhythm Division
(http://www.rhythmdivision.co.uk/home.asp) and Independance
(http://www.independance-records.co.uk/ug.htm), and the swarm of blogs
covering the scene.
Solid are famous as the first MC crew to crossover big-time--they hit
#1 with "21 Seconds"--and infamous for their frequent brushes with the
law. In grime terms, though, their single most influential track is this
instrumental, which replaced 2step's sultry swing with an
electro-derived coldness and rigour. This new starkness was a timely
move given that 2step had reached the inevitable "over-ripe" phase that
afflicts all dance genres, its beats becoming cluttered and fussy. With
its hard-angled drum machine snares and single-note sustained bassdrone
veering upward in pitch, "Dilemma" rediscovered the Kraftwerk principle:
inflexibility can sometimes be more funky than suppleness. So solid,
indeed: "Dilemma" is like a huge block of ice in the middle of the
dancefloor, a real vibe-chiller.
So Solid affiliates DJ Oxide and MC Neutrino also scored a #1 UK hit
"Bound 4 Da Reload". Initially a pirate radio anthem through 1999,
"Reload" created a massive rift in the garage scene: older types loathed
it, young 'uns loved it. Today's grime heads would probably disown
their teenage favorite as a mere novelty track. Which it certainly was,
from the Casualty TV theme sample to the "can everyone stop getting shot?" soundbite from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Gimmicks aside, Oxide's production is heavy,
from the ice-stab pizzicato violins ("strings of death," perhaps, given
the track's allusions to the rising blood-tide of violence on London's
streets) to the doom-boom of sub-bass to the morgue-chilly echo swathing
much of the record. Probably equally repellent to 2step fans was the
nagging, nasal insistence of Neutrino's rapping, which is remorselessly
unmelodic but horribly catchy. Instantly transforming 2step from "the
sound of now" to its current nostalgia-night status as "old skool,"
"Reload" has strong claims to being the first Grime tune.
on dubplate as early as 1999, "Know We" was in constant pirate rotation
by the time of its 2001 release, alongside chip-off-the-same-block
track "Terrible". Both are back-to-basics affairs: simple programmed
beats, in each case adorned with the solitary hook of a violin flourish,
functioning purely as a vehicle for the MCs. Another striking shared
characteristic is the use of the first person plural. Each MC bigs up
himself when it's his turn on the mic, but at the chorus individualism
is subsumed in a collective thrust for prestige. "Now we're going on
terrible," promise/threaten Roll Deep, and they don't mean they're about
to give a weak performance. "Roll deep" itself meaning marauding around
town as a mob. But there's a hint of precariousness to Pay As U Go's
assertions of universal reknown. The sense of grandeur is latent;
they're not stars yet. What does come through loud and clear on
both tracks is the hunger. "Terrible" starts with a Puff Daddy
soundbite: "sometimes I don't think you motherfuckers understand where
I'm coming from, where I'm trying to get to." Both the PAUG and Roll
Deep tracks were produced by a young prodigy named Wiley, whose
catchphrase back then was "they call me William/I'm gonna make a
million". Roll Deep are grime's NWA (its ranks have included such
luminaries as Dizzee Rascal, Riko, Flow Dan, Trim, and Danny Weed), with
Wiley as its Dr Dre. If he's yet to make that first million, this human
dynamo must surely have released close to that number of tracks these
last four years.
gangsta rap comparison isn't an idle one. PAUG and Roll Deep pioneered
criminal-minded lyrics. Taking them literally isn't always advisable, as
the imagery of "slewing" and "merking" is often purely metaphorical,
signifying the destruction of rival MCs in verbal combat, the maiming of
egos rather than bodies. Still, the genre wasn't always so relentlessly
hostile. Just before the grimy era, "garage rap" outfits like Heartless
Crew and Genius Cru exuded playful bonhomie. The follow-up to their #12
pop hit "Boom Selection," Genius' "Course Bruv" talks about spreading
"nuff love" in the club and stresses that they "still don't wanna hurt
nobody." The chorus even celebrates the rave-era ritual of sharing your
soft drinks with complete strangers, the "course bruv" being Genius's
gracious acquiescence to "can I have a sip of that?" Producer Capone
weaves an effervescent merry-go-round groove of chiming bass-melody and
giddy looped strings, while the MCs hypnotize with the sheer bubbling
fluidity of their chat. The verses are deliberately preposterous playa
wish-fulfillment: "Number one breadwinner" Keflon claims he's "invested
in many shares, many many stocks" while Fizzy purports to date "celeb
chicks," "ballerinas" and even have "hot chicks as my household
PLATINUM 45 featuring MORE FIRE
radio culture evolves in small increments, month by month. The onset of
one genre or sub-flava overlaps with the twilight of its predecessor.
There are rarely clean breaks. Still, every so often a track comes along
that yells "IT'S THE NEW STYLE!!!!" in your face. "Oi!" was one of
them. Drawing on the most anti-pop, street vanguard elements in black
music history--ragga's twitch 'n' lurch, electro's
jump-up jungle's bruising bass-blows --producer Platinum 45 created a
most unlikely #7 hit. Factor in the barely-decipherable jabber of More
Fire's Lethal B, Ozzie B, and Neeko, and the result was one of the most
abrasively alien Top of the Pops appearances ever. The tune's
pogo-like hard-bounce bass and uncouth Cockney-goes-ragga chants mean
that "Oi!" has more in common with Cockney Rejects-style punk than you'd
imagine. "Oi!", then--grime's biggest hit to date, before the genre
even had a name.
"PULSE X (VIP Mix)"
regarded at the time as UK garage's absolute nadir, "Pulse X" is
actually a pivotal track: the scene's first purpose-built MC tool.
Locating a new rhythm at the exact intersection of electro and gabba.
"Pulse" is virtually unlistenable--those dead-eyed claps, those numbly
concussive kicks--on its own. But in combination with a great MC, the
skeletal riddim becomes an instant and massive intravenal jolt of pure
adrenalin. It's not just the headbanging energy, though, it's the
track's very structure that is radical. "Pulse X" was the first 8-bar
tune, so-called because the rhythm switches every eight bars, thereby
enabling MCs to take turns to drop 16 bars of rhymes using both
beat-patterns. Far from being UK garage's death-rattle, "Pulse X"
rescued the scene, rudderless and demoralized after
2step's pop bubble burst. The sheer phallomorphic rigour of "Pulse X" gave the scene a spine, a forward direction.
as a white label from summer 2002 onwards, "I Luv U" turned London
pirate culture around as much as "Pulse X". Legendarily creating the
track in a single afternoon during a school music class, Dizzee took the
same sort of sounds Musical Mob used--gabba-like distorted kickdrums,
shearing-metal claps--and turned them into actual music. Add a
teenage MC genius desperate to announce himself to the world, and you
have grime's "Anarchy in the UK." The punk parallel applies because of
the harsh Englishness of Dizzee's vocal timbre and the lovelessness of
the lyric, which depicts the pitfalls of the, er, dating game from the
p.o.v of too-much-too-young 16 year olds whose hearts have been
calloused into premature cynicism. Dizzee's snotty derision is almost
eclipsed by the come-back from female MC Jeannie Jacques, who throws
"that girl's some bitch yunno" back in his face with the equally
corrosive "that boy's some prick yunno." The original white label
featured the "Luv U" instrumental, but tossed away on the XL rerelease's
B-side is the classic "Vexed": Dizzee's stressed delivery makes you
picture steam coming out of his ears and the music--beats like ice-floes
cracking, shrill synth-tingles--renders obsolete the entire previous
half-decade of retro-electro in one foul swoop.
but at this point still Rolling Deep, Wiley invented a entire
mini-genre of low-key, emaciated instrumentals: asymmetrically
structured grooves based around sidewinder B-lines that "Slinky
downstairs" (as DJ Paul Kennedy put it), and glinting, fragmentary
melodies. From his legion of imitators, these tended to be strictly
MC-funktional beats, but in Wiley's case, more often than not the tracks
are highly listenable stand-alone aesthetic objects even without
rhyming. The first in an ongoing series of ice-themed tunes ("Igloo",
"Frostbite," "Snowkat", et al). "Eskimo" was the blueprint for this
dinky-yet-creepy micro-genre (which Wiley dubbed "Eskibeat"). "Ice Rink"
took the concept of MC tool to the next level. Instead of just being
sold as an instrumental for MCs to use, it was released in some eight
versions featuring different MCS. Spread across two 12 inches, 'Ice
Rink" constituted a de facto riddim album. Dizzee's turn is the
stand-out, his scrawny voice oozing the impudence of someone at the top
of his game, as he invites all haters to plant their lips upon his
posterior: "kiss from the left to the right/kiss 'til my black
bum-cheeks turn white". Wiley's palsy of gated doorslam kicks and
mercury-splash blips jostles with Dizzee for your attention.
JAMMER featuring D DOUBLE E
saw a slew of 8-bar instrumentals suffused with cod-Oriental exoticism.
As incongruous as a pagoda plopped smack dab in the centre of Bow,
"Weed Man" is the supreme example of "sinogrime," Hyperdub
webzine's term for this micro-genre. Produced by Nasty Crew's Jammer,
the track is dedicated to "all the marijuana smokers" and appropriately
the tempo is torpid to a trip hop-like degree. The loping, sprained
rhythm flashes back to Sylvian-Sakomoto's "Bamboo Music" while the
ceremonial bassline and breathy flute conjure mind's eye imagery of Zen
gardens and temples. But where Wiley's similar excursions Eastwards were
fueled by record-buying trips to Sterns, Jammer mostly likely derived
his notion of Oriental mystery from videogame muzik and martial arts
movie soundtracks.
"Birds In the Sky" has a similarly
Medieval atmosphere but, apart from the plucky twang of some kind of
stringed Far Eastern instrument, is less obviously an ethnological
forgery. The solo debut of one of grime's greatest MCs, D Double E,
"Birds" has a brooding meditational aura. The lyric pivots around the
bizarre trope of a verbal drive-by, the MC firing off word-bullets that
are also "like birds in the sky/hit one of your bredren's in the eye".
Double muses on his motivations--"why?/cos I'm an evil guy"--then emits
his signature vocal-licks, the pain-pleasure groan of "oooh-oooh" and
the mouth-mangled "it's me, me", which sounds more like "mwui-mwui".
Former PAUG stalwart and man behind the ace Aim High compilations,
Target here creates one of Grime's most stirringly cinematic epics,
placing a heart-tugging orchestral refrain amid a strange decentered
drum-track whose flurries of claps and kicks seem to trip over
themselves. This groove's sensation of impeded yet steadfast
forward-motion totally fits the lyric's theme of determination and
destiny. In his smoky, patois-tinged baritone, Riko (another PAUG
alumnus) counsels calmness and composure to all those struggling,
whether they're aspiring MCs striving to make it or regular folk trying
to make it through everyday strife: "Use your head to battle through/cos
you are the chosen one." The synth swells favoured by Ruff Sqwad also
have a cinematic grandeur, like gangsta Vangelis. "Lethal Injection",
though, is one of their more minimal efforts, consisting of a wibbly
keyboard line, the boom of a heavily echoed kick drum, and the Sqwad's
rapid-fire jabber, swathed in a susurrating shroud of reverb and
background chat. Not a tear-jerker like "Chosen One," but incredibly
by Industry Standard, you could justly describe Terror Danjah as one of
the most accomplished electronic musicians currently active. On tracks
like "Juggling" and "Sneak Attack," the intricate syncopation,
texturized beats, spatialized production, and "abstracty sounds"
(Danjah's own phrase) makes this "headphone grime"--not something that
could be claimed for too many operators on the scene. Yet all this
finesse is marshaled in service of a fanatically doomy and monolithic
mood, Gothic in the original barbarian invader meaning. The atmosphere
of domineering darkness is distilled in Danjah's audio-logo, a demonic
cackle that resembles some jeering, leering cyborg death-dwarf, which
appears in all of his productions and remixes. "Creep Crawler," the
first tune on Industry Standard, and its sister track "Frontline (Creepy Crawler Mix)," which kicks off Pay Back,
are Danjah's sound at its most pungently oppressive. "Creep Crawler"
begins with the producer smirking aloud ("'heh-heh, they're gonna hate
me now"), then a bonecrusher beat stomps everything in its path, while
ominous horn-blasts pummel in the lower mid-range and synths wince like
the onset of migraine. From its opening something-wicked-this-way-comes
note-sequence onwards, Big E.D.'s original "Frontline" was hair-raising
already. Danjah's remix of his acolyte's monstertune essentially merges
it with "Creep Crawler," deploying the same astringent synth-dissonance
and trademark bass-blare fanfares (filtered to create a weird sensation
of suppressed bombast) but to even more intimidating and
shudder-inducing effect.
(on GRIME 2, REPHLEX COMPILATION, 2004)
you hadn't already guessed from the name, grime inverts values. Dutty,
stinkin', even disgustin'--all are positive attributes in grime
parlance. So when I say "Hard Graft" is utterly dismal, you'll
know this is the thumbs up. Grime often represents itself as gutter
music. Mark One and Plasticman go further, or deeper, with this track,
and seem to plunge into the sewage system. Full of clanking beats,
septic gurglings, eerie echoes and scuttling percussion, "Hard Graft"
makes you imagine pipes, storm drains, dank chambers.
One, Plasticman and their cohorts constitute not so much a subgenre of
grime as a side-genre, running adjacent to the scene proper. The sound
is techy, MC-free, and more danceable than grime. Although a number of
black producers are involved, you could fairly describe this style's
sonic coding as whiter than grime, and situate it on a Euro continuum
running through Belgian industrial techno (Meng Syndicate, 80 Aum)
through the cold technoid end of rave (Nebula II) to No U Turn's
techstep and Photek-style neurofunk (the beats on "Hard Graft" sometimes
recall his "Ni Ten Ichi Ryu"). Plasticman's nomenclative proximity to
the Richie Hawtin alias seems telling.
The black
component to this genre-without-a-satisfactory-name is dub (indeed its
precursor was a UK garage micro-genre known as dubstep). Loefah's
clanking skank connects to a lineage of industrial-but-rootical UK
music: On U, bleep'n'bass (Ability II's "Pressure", say), The Orb,
Techno-Animal. "Bombay Squad" is built around what feels like a
half-finished, or partially erased, groove: massive echo-laden
snare-cracks, a liquid pitter of tablas situated in a localized corner
of the mix, and… that's it, apart from the dark river of sub-bass that
propels the track forward. The title's intertextual traces include
Public Enemy's producers and 2 Bad Mice's rave anthem "Bombscare," but
actually allude to the track's sole coloration, the plaintive ululation
of a Bollywood diva.
works on the cusp between grime proper and the Plasticman/Mark
One/Loefah sound. "What" makes something compellingly atmospheric out of
the most meagre components: a beat dragging like a wounded leg,
sub-bass yawning ominously like a portal into the underworld, a dejected
one-finger-melody suggestive of an autistic desultorily toying with a
xylophone, occasional dank blips of electronics. Overall, the audio mise-en-scene
is something like "twilight falls on the battle-scarred moon." Also
vaguely redolent of The Mover's gloomy brand of ambient gabba, Wonder's
remix of "Hype! Hype!" replaces the perky original backing track
(produced by the great Sticky) with a groan-drone of sick technoise.
catastrophe-in-slow-mo makes a marvelously incongruous
backdrop for the roaring vocal hook chanted by North West London crew
JAMMER featuring KANO
WONDER featuring KANO
TERROR DANJAH featuring KANO and SADIE
backing tracks are fabulous--Jammer's frenetic snare-roll clatter,
Wonder's tonally harrowed synths, Danjah's aching ripples of idyllic
electronics--but it's the MC who really shines. With some grime
rhymesters, the flow resembles an involuntary discharge (D Double E
being the ultimate exponent of MCing as automatic poetry). But even at
his most hectic, as on "Boys Love Girls," Kano always sounds in complete
control. All poise and deliberation, Kano invariably sounds like he's
weighing up the angles, calculating his moves, calibrating which
outcomes serve his interests. That's blatant on "Boys" and "What Have
You Done", both cold-hearted takes on modern romance that depict sex in
transactional terms, a ledger of positives and minuses, credits and
debits; a war of the genders in which keeping your feelings checked and
maintaining distance is strategically crucial. But it comes through
even in the gorgeous ballad "So Sure," on which Kano blurs the border
between loverman and soldier drawing up plans for conquest: "ain't got
time to be one of them guys just watching you and wasting time/next time
I'm clocking you I'm stopping you to make you mine." As much as the
acutely observed lyrical details, it's the timbre of Kano's voice that's
enthralling: slick yet grainy, like varnished wood, and knotty with
halting cadences that convince you he's thinking these thoughts aloud
for the very first time.
Sure" is an example of the burgeoning subgenre R&G, basically a
transparent attempt to lure the ladies back onto the floor, after
they'd been turned off by the testosterone-heavy vibe of tracks more
suitable for moshing than sexy dancing. As the name R&G, short
for rhythm-and-grime, suggests, the mini-genre replicates 2step's
original move of copping American R&B's luxurious arrangements
and diva-melisma. Alongside Terror Danjah, Davinche pioneered
R&G with tunes like "Leave Me Alone". Too often these attempts
at Brit-Beyonce fall short owing to a lack of grounding in songcraft and
the studio art of mic'ing vocalists, and end up sounding slightly thin
and shabby. So I prefer Davinche's instrumental efforts like the Dirty Canvas
EP series. The quasi-soundtrack orchestration of "Stinger"--flurrying
strings, decaying tones from a softly-struck gong--are designed to
swathe any MC who rhymes over it with an aura of slightly-harried
majesty. Built out of similar pizzicato elements meshed to a beat like a
clockwork contraption gone haywire, "Madness," I'd wager, drew
inspiration from the paranoia zone reached after one toke too many on a
spliff: racing thoughts, pounding heart, jangled nerves, the suspicion
that you might just be losing your mind.
Grime is
synonomous with East London, but other parts of the city are starting to
get a look-in. Essentials, Davinche's crew, operate out of South. This
powerful sense of territoriality is integral to the concept of
"Headquarters," which draws on the talents of a veritable battalion of
MCs, some guests and some from Essentials' own barracks. At each chorus,
a drill sergeant barks questions at the MC who's stepping up for his
mic' turn: "state your name, soldier", "state your location" (usually
"East" or "South," sometimes a specific postal district), "who you
reppin'" (usually a crew, like Essentials, N.A.S.T.Y, Aftershock, but
sometimes just "myself"). Then the sergeant orders each recruit to get
down and "give me sixteen"--not press-ups, but 16 bars of rhymes. The
amazing production seals the conceptual deal, the chorus being
accompanied by cello-like instrumentation that's been digitally
contorted into an unearthly wraith-like whinny, or a cyberwolf howling
at the moon.
LETHAL B featuring FUMIN, D DOUBLE E, NAPPA, JAMAKABI, NEEKO, FLOW DAN, OZZI B, FORCER, DEMON, & HOT SHOT
a failed mainstream-bid album, More Fire looked all washed up in 2003,
but Lethal B rebuilt their street rep from the ground up. In 2004, his
"Forward" riddim became the scene's biggest anthem. Renamed "Pow" on
account of its main vocal hook, it ultimately barged its way to the
outskirts of the Top Ten, achieving grime's highest chart placing
since… well, "Oi!". The riddim, produced by Dexplicit, is basic verging
on crude, a madly gyrating loop that resembles an out-of-control
carousel. "Pow!!!," Lethal's chorus chant, evokes the fisticuffs of
comic book superheroes. Matching the track's rowdy vibe (it was
reputedly banned in some clubs for inciting mayhem on the floor), a
squadron of top MCs lay on the ultraviolence, the cartoon flavor of
which can be gleaned from Demon's immortal warning "you don't wanna
bring some beef/Bring some beef you'll lose some teeth".
JAMMER featuring WILEY, D DOUBLE E, KANO & DURTY DOOGZ
"Pow", "Destruction" is a rollercoaster of pugilistic noise and lyrical
aggro, but Jammer's production is marginally more sophisticated,
slicing 'n' dicing brassy fanfares (probably from blacksploitation
movies) and filtering them to create a sort of surging-yet-leashed
effect, like the track is simmering with pent-up rage. The four
scene-leading MCs rise to the occasion, from Wiley's riffed variations
on "I know Trouble but Trouble says he don't know you," to Kano's
quaintly Anglicized gangsta boat "from lamp post to lamp post, we run
the road". But the star performance comes from D Double. Seemingly
battling multiple speech impediments, he expectorates glottal gouts of
raw verbiage. As so often, there's that characteristic sense of
involuntary utterance, like it's him who's being spoken through. "Spitting" is too decorous a word for his rhyme style;
is closer. Witness Double's astonishing first six bars on
"Destruction", a gargoyle-like gibber closer to hieroglyphics than
language, and seemingly emanating from the same infrahuman zone Iggy
plumbed on "Loose" and "TV Eye".
On Double's first
solo single since "Birds in the Sky", rising producer P-Jam's snaking
wooze of gaseous malevolence sparks one of the MC's most Tourettic
performances. Barely tethered to the beat's bar scheme, Double seems to
be wading waist-deep through sonic sludge. He boasts of "sucking up MCs
like a hoover", an image possibly cued by the Mentasm-like miasma
unloosed by P-Jam.
sped-up diva on "Str8 Flash" might be a nod to Kanye West's
Chaka-accelerating "Through the Wire" but equally could be a folk-memory
flashback to the early Nineties, when rave producers whisked female
vocal samples into helium-squeaky hypergasms of spectral bliss. That
said, everything else in Lowdeep's hot riddim testifies to the influence
on grime of the last half-decade of rap and R&B. Pizzicato
harp-like sounds and stuttering beats create a frozen peak of tense
glory. IMP Batch's "Gype," the inescapable riddim of early 2005 and the
backing track for Crazy Titch's "Sing Along," takes grime's
quasi-orchestral ambitions to the next level. Using classical music
samples (Prokofiev?), IMP Batch expertly chop up and resequence the
refrains--fluttery flutes, cascading strings, a cello ostinato--to form a
hilariously prissy yet dynamic groove. This parodic high-culture
refinement makes a wonderfully incongruous setting for Crazy's hoarsely
hollered anthem.
most producers in most dance genres, grime beat-makers typically invent
a striking sound, then wear it out with endless market-milking
iterations. Terror Danjah has often approached that dangerzone, but on
"Boogieman," he shows how much scope for inventive arrangement remains
in the "Creep Crawler" template. You can hear the cartoon-comical
wooh-wooh-woooooh ghostly touches best on the instrumental version,
"Haunted" (on Aftershock's Roadsweeper EP). "Boogieman" itself is
a showcase for rising star Trim, here honing his persona of scoffing
imperturbality: "I'm not scared of the boogieman/I scare the boogieman."
"Not Convinced," Danjah draughts a whole new template that reveals the
producer's roots in drum'n'bass (the track's futuristic tingles vaguely
recall's Foul Play "Being With You" remix). Again, though, the MC makes
it hard to focus on the riddim. More than anyone apart from
not-grime-really Mike Skinner, Bruza incorporates British intonation and
idiom into a totally effective style of rapping, in which the not-flow
of stilted English cadences becomes a new flow. It sounds "brutal and
British," as Bruza puts it. As his name suggests, the MC has also
perfected a hardman persona that feels authentically English rather than
a gangsta fantasy based on Compton or Kingston. He exudes a laconic,
steely menace redolent of bouncers. "Not Convinced" extrapolates from
this not-easily-impressed persona to create a typology of character in
which the world is divided into the serious and the silly, the latter
lacking the substance and conviction to give their words authority.
Bruza addresses, and dresses down, a wannabe MC: "I'm not
convinced/Since you've been spitting/I haven't believed one word/Not one
inch/Not even a millimeter/To me you sound like a silly speaker/Silly
features in your style/You spit silly/You spit like how kids be**."
KANO featuring D DOUBLE E & DEMON
back to "Bound 4 The Reload," this track celebrates the pirate radio
and rave tradition of the DJ rewind, when the crowd hollers (or
home-listening audience text-messages) its demand for the selector to
wheel and come again. Until grime, the trigger for rewinds would be a
killer sampled vocal lick, thrilling bass-drop, or even just a mad
breakbeat. Nowadays, the MC being king, the crowd clamors to hear their
favourite rhymes. "This is what it means when DJs reload it/That sixteen
was mean and he knows it," explains Kano, before listing the other top
dog MCs who get nuff rewinds (two of them, Double and Demon, guest on
the track). "I get a reload purely for the flow," Kano preens, and you
can see why as he glides with lethal panache between quick-time rapping
and a leisurely, drawn-out gait that seems to drag on the beat to slow
it down. The track itself, co-produced by Kano and Diplo, is all
shimmery excitement, pivoting around a spangly filtered riff that
ascends and descends the same four notes, driven by a funky rampage of
live-sounding drums, and punctuated by horn samples, Beni G's
scratching, and orgasmic girl-moans. The old skool breakbeat-like energy
suggests an attempt to sell the notion of Grime as British hip hop, yet
if Trans-Atlantic crossover is the intent, that's subverted by the
lyric, its theme being as localized and Grime-reflexive as imaginable.
"Reload It" encapsulates the conflicted impulses that fuel this scene:
undergroundist insularity versus an extrovert hunger to engage with, and
conquer, the whole wide world.
* footnote: I quipped to my friends that when I'd pitched this piece to the Wire
it was on the grounds that the scene was now unpopular enough to be in
the magazine! Joking aside, it was actually, weirdly true. The
breakthrough for me was realizing that pirate radio had become a
narrowcast medium. Because the potential audience is limitless, there's
always been a grandiosity to the pirates—"this one's for you,
London"—and at key points, that's been perfectly justified: hardcore was
massive nationwide, jungle was the Sound of London in '94, as was speed
garage in 1997, while 2step felt like a form of pop music in exile and
sure enough broke through to dominate the mainstream. Grime initially
had the air of something that was destined to be pop, and the precedents
of So Solid and More Fire and various garage Number One hit wonders
like Pied Piper gave it great self-expectations. But just because you're
broadcasting doesn't mean everyone's tuning into the signal; most
people who chanced upon grime stations probably veered away as quickly
as if they'd stumbled on a pirate dedicated to Derek Bailey-style
improv. All of sudden, I realized that the grime pirates had become a
niche thing, a micro-culture that probably wasn't that much bigger than the anti-pop vanguards that populated the pages of The Wire.
Then of course, grime did become pop - Tinchy Stryder, Dizzee with Calvin Harris, Wiley's "Wearing My Rolex", etc etc -- but only by getting rid of all the griminess, everything that distinguished it as a genre, a movement, a cause worth championing. I was chuffed for Dizzee - especially with "Bonkers" - got a big buzz seeing him in videos on Euro MTV type channels with Shakira - and a mighty rush when he materialised onstage at the Olympics opening ceremony, doing "Bonkers". But if you'd told me in 2005 that the absolute highpoint of grime-as-grime's popcultural impact would have been "Pow" getting to just outside the Top Ten...
** for the longest while I heard this as "you spit like Agnes B"!


text:
Re: Buddhist opinions about the Historical Jesus
Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2012 3:30 pm
I think it can be a useful teaching tool if understood symbolically.Nangwa wrote:Guru Rinpoche was a man born to parents who had penises and vaginas.Sonam Wangchug wrote:'Nangwa wrote:
Thats a possibility I suppose but even bodhisattvas in the human realm need penises and vaginas in order to take birth.
Than what's your take on Guru Rinpoche?
Thats my take. I dont buy the floral-birth legend at all and actually think it is completely unnecessary.


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Capital Obscenity!
Back in February I wrote about the circuit split between the Ninth and Eleventh Circuits over the application of federal obscenity laws in the Internet age. This is a major issue of law that a majority of the Court, in concurring and dissenting opinions of 2002's Ashcroft v. ACLU, first telegraphed its interest in updating, revisiting, or outright abandoning.
This week, another obscenity trial begins in Judge Leon's federal district courtroom here in DC. Via Mike Scarcella of the National Law Journal:
Stagliano and two of his companies were indicted in federal district court in Washington in April 2008 on seven counts of distributing obscene, sexually graphic videos that U.S. Justice Department prosecutors allege have no artistic or scientific value and cut against the community standard of what is acceptable. He faces up to 32 years behind bars if convicted.
Jury selection is under way and opening arguments are expected to begin this week in the first adult porn obscenity case in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in more than 20 years. "There won't be any falling asleep in this courtroom," Judge Richard Leon said at a hearing in the case June 14. "I can assure you of that." […]
[Stagliano's lawyers are] arguing that Stagliano has a right to possess and to distribute sexually explicit material. The lawyers contend federal obscenity standards are too vague to govern Internet speech. The sexual acts in the movies were lawful, the lawyers said, and the participants were consenting adults. "The right of sexual privacy has evolved as society's attitudes about sexuality have evolved," Corn-Revere said in court papers in July 2008. "Liberty now gives substantial protection to adult persons in deciding how to conduct their private lives in matters pertaining to sex. This protection is broad enough to encompass a right to buy and sell obscene materials."
In declining to dismiss the indictment earlier this year, Leon said the federal obscenity statutes are not unconstitutionally vague as applied to Internet speech. "Although public morality may be an insufficient justification for regulating private conduct in some cases, it is certainly a sufficient justification for regulating the sort of public conduct at issue here," Leon wrote.
Beyond the racy subject matter and evidence to be presented to the district court this week, we will also witness some scintillating constitutional law discussions. The above passage points to Stagliano's use of Lawrence to argue invalidation of federal obscenity laws under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment's right to privacy.* This argument worked in the Western District of Pennsylvania in 2005, but ever since the Third Circuit rebuked and reversed the district court and the Supreme Court denied certiorari, appeals to Lawrence have gone unheeded.
So to further push the issue of federal obscenity laws before the Supreme Court, expect also to see attacks on the "community standards" prong of the Miller test, which courts use to determine whether material is obscene:
Lawrence Walters, a First Amendment lawyer who specializes in representing clients in adult entertainment, said obscenity cases have historically been filed in districts that are generally viewed as conservative. "It may result in one of the first cases where a more cosmopolitan jury has made a determination of obscenity with regard to adult material," said Walters of Walters Law Group in Altamonte Springs, Fla.
Although the Supreme Court and lower courts ultimately came to implicitly interpret "community standards" to be those of the location in which the material was sent, the Ninth Circuit in late 2009 stated that national community standards should apply in a jury's determining Internet obscenity.
Depending on how this jury rules, the inevitable appeal will likely feature an attack on local community standards – either as too permissive in a big city should Stagliano get acquitted or too arbitrary should he get convicted. Either way, however, the recent circuit split over the community standards prong will be made more ripe for Supreme Court review.
The question, then, becomes whether the Court will conform to its opinions in Ashcroft I or not. Thomas, Scalia, and Rehnquist were perfectly satisfied with local standards. Might Roberts, given his First Amendment protectiveness this term, deviate from his predecessor's vote? In refusing to extend the Court's obscenity jurisprudence to dogfighting in United States v. Stevens, Roberts said nothing of material that actually does fall within the Court's sex-tethered definition of obscenity. But in siding with the government in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project for national security concerns, the Chief showed himself willing to favor traditionally conservative concerns–of which the protection of morals-based laws have long figured–over First Amendment absolutism.
Meanwhile, O'Connor wrote in favor of a national standard, but her successor, Alito, will likely go with local standards, given his lone Stevens dissent this term.
Kennedy wrote for Ginsburg and Souter suggesting that the local standards should be reconsidered, but didn't tip his hand on what side upon which he'd come down until he had more evidence to make such a determination. Adding uncertainty upon that concurrence's uncertainty, we don't know how Sotomayor would have voted then or now, and Ginsburg may not even be on the Court by the time this case may make it up there.
And finally, Justice Stevens, the lone dissenter in Ashcroft arguing to toss community standards altogether as applied to the Internet, may not have as zealous of a successor in Elena Kagan.
This trial, and its aftermath, will surely be something worth watching.
*Lawrence concerned state laws, so the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause governed; this case tests federal obscenity laws, which implicate the Fifth Amendment's analogous language securing against deprivation of liberty without due process of law.
UPDATE: 7/13 – Scarcella provides a report from today's introduction of evidence to the jurors.


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Movies We Like
Blood Simple
I have this wacky theory that all Coen Brother movies are comedies. Even the ones that aren't comedies (this theory was proven wrong with No Country for Old Men). But even one of their bleakest films, Blood Simple, in all its revenge fueled violence and mayhem, still plays out like a Ealing Studios comedy. To fully defend my stupid (and most likely wrong) theory I'd have to give away too much of the plot, but basically every character in the movie thinks they know exactly what is going on despite the fact that they are, in reality, completely clueless to what is really happening. This all comes to a head in a final scene that if it wasn't so edge-of-your-seat, nail-bitingly tense, you'd laugh out loud. Or maybe not, what do I know?
Regardless of my pretentious genre-swapping, jibba-jabba Blood Simple is a great film. A well paced, methodically told story that seems ridiculously confident for a debut film. All of the Coen Brother aesthetics we've grown to love are there (clearly they have not progressed): wonderful dialog, inventive camera work, and a love for southern folk. M. Emmet Walsh gives a particularly creepy performance as a hit man who will do anything if it pays right and is legal ... well, if it pays right. It also features cinemas greatest "Howdy" exchange between two passing cars.