It’s a funny thing about Ireland. One thing I recall, the first night I was in Dublin: Ireland is a silent country. Very little sound in Ireland, and this adds to the strange poignancy of this country. There’s a curious kind of silence that hangs over even the biggest cities. Even in the middle of a giant traffic jam, somehow it’s muted and silent. And I remember walking out of the hotel I was living in, which was not far from the river in Dublin, and it was March, this time of year, and the streets were wet, and there was a kind of grayness, a sort of wrapped in cotton softness to everything.

Ireland doesn’t really get cold, you know, like we get here in New York or in America, ’cause it’s an island country and the sea tempers everything. It doesn’t get warm in the summertime, really. It’s always sort of muted, and it’s always vaguely green and gray. It’s always a sense of, somehow somebody hasn’t really quite opened the curtains. There’s a quality of, continually of, you can’t quite see in Ireland. Even in the bright sunlight, it’s muted and soft.

And so I’m walking along a winding street. And the concrete and the stones, the bricks were rounded, and they were wet and the kind of slippery and gleaming. And I was walking along, it must of have been nine or ten O’clock… And it was vaguely foggy, and you could see the fog laying around the streetlights, the turn in the street that I was walking along. And there was something that was kind of bothering me. I couldn’t figure out what it was. It was a strange thing. And then I began to discover what it was. I could hear my own footsteps! It was the first time, in a long time, I ever heard my feet on a street in a big city. I could hear my feet and I could hear them echoing from side to side. And then, as I became conscious of this, I could hear feet all around me. I could hear feet in the next street. I could hear feet of people ahead of me, and behind me. And then I heard sounds of windows. Someone would open a window and I would hear the sound of a door close…

After a five year hiatus from recording and touring, Jone Stebbins, Roddy Bottum, Lynn (Perko) Truell, and Will Schwartz prove they still know how to deliver catchy, harmonious pop songs, sparkling with B-52s vocal moxie, lots of cool repetitive hooks, and their own brand of jaded humor. With their fourth album, The Hair the TV the Baby & the Band (Merge), Imperial Teen continue exploring personal, social, and sexual themes. Like the Kinks, they seem to pleasure in writing bouncy pop songs while singing lyrics about the darker problems of adult life. Any band their age with an ironic name like Imperial Teen can’t help being a bit self-conscious about growing older and “Room With A View” captures that perfectly with — Nothing left to defend/Going under the knife/Do our best to pretend/We’ll be 20 for life. Well, Imperial Teen certainly have more than enough youthful energy on stage to rock the house. I suggest you catch them on tour before they retire.

Since the recent death of Swedish director Igmar Bergman, I’ve been thinking of his many films I’ve seen over the years. The one that still haunts me today is his 1961 Academy Award winner, The Virgin Spring. I first saw it twelve years ago, shortly after being laid off from my print shop assistant job. One day I decided to borrow a few movies from the local library. In my melancholy state, I was naturally drawn to the small foreign film section. Later that night, I was transported to a much simpler time where the young virgin daughter of a devout Christian farmer rides horseback for miles to bring candles to the nearest church. I didn’t know what to make of the film at first, but it made me forget my unemployment woes for a little while.

The only other Bergman film I’d seen at the time was The Seventh Seal, but it didn’t affect me the way this story had. I realize now that Bergman was not just re-telling a 14th-century Swedish legend, he was presenting universal archetypal symbols which transcend the simple Christian allegory of redemption. I found that C.J. Jung’s use of the shadow to represent repressed aspects of all the darker and neglected parts of our lives was very useful to understanding this film. The shadow is not all evil, for it can contain sound instinctive reactions also, which is why we must always be on guard against it.

Karin’s dark haired, pregnant sister, Ingeri, prays to the Norse god, Odin. Because Ingeri hates Karin for being the favorite daughter, she slips a toad into her bread. One might say that the Ingeri character is the shadow cast by Karin’s virgin light. Ingeri follows her sister and watches her being raped and murdered by two herdsmen with whom she had innocently shared her lunch. Ironically, the herdsman and the child they are traveling with end up at Herr Töre’s farmhouse where they ask to be put up for the night. When they try to sell Karin’s clothes to the mother, they realize that the herdsmen had murdered her. Herr Töre waits until his guests fall asleep, then kills them both, along with the child. That morning the family sets out to find Karin’s body. Falling to his knees, Herr Töre vows to God that he will construct a church on that same ground. As he and his wife lift up her body water begins to spout from the grassy earth where her head had laid. The dark sister Ingeri is suddenly converted to Christianity, as she desires to purify herself with the water.

Herdsman, or shepherds, are always viewed as protectors. Yet in this story, the good shepherds are transformed into wolves who slaughter an innocent lamb. And the rage which drives the father is the shadow side of his normally peaceful and devout Christian nature. His lust for revenge extends even to the child companion of the herdsmen, although his own holy book states that “it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.” He fell victim to his own passions, but only by confronting the dark shadow cast by his soul, can he ever hope to find harmony again.

The water which springs from the ground can be interpreted as a sign of divine approval of Herr Töre’s desire to build a church in memory of his daughter’s death. Almost all religious traditions view the idea of primordial water as the source of all life, a vehicle of purification and rebirth. Water is considered the Great Mother, and is connected with the feminine principle, the universal womb, the prima materia. The divine water and the future cathedral are attempts to balance the evil that has overwhelmed the good. It does not matter whether the evil Herr Töre commits is a reaction to a greater evil, his shadow must be confronted. This spiritual transformation is the most important theme of the film.

Bergman felt that the idea of therapeutic resolution was artistically uninteresting. But my impression is different. There is something so utterly primal and mysterious about the ending of the film that it stayed with me for years. I don’t agree with Bergman in that his motifs got “all tangled up” in this film because he was “psychologizing” the script. I doubt that he could have escaped those archetypes for they manifest themselves from the deep waters of our unconscious. We need to delve deep into our darker side so that we may know what we are capable of. Once we confront the shadow-figure in our soul, we are better able to find our true light. To see ourselves from both sides is to become a much wiser person.

Hipsters are often reduced by critics to the style of clothes they wear and the type of music they listen to, but that’s only half the story. Hipsters are usually not artists, poets or musicians, but they frequent the right clubs, and wear the right clothes. They are obsessed with fashion fads, drink fads, music fads — all things that the old-school hipsters shunned. The original hipsters of the 40s and 50s listened to jazz, smoked reefers, took peyote in the desert, and wrote poetry about the atom bomb. By the late 60s, being a hippie was just a fashion statement. Many hippie wanabees were under the impression that if you took enough LSD, you could become a real poet. The Bohemian lifestyle was simply another costume one could wear in public. The same thing happened to the punk subculture in the late 70s and early 80s. When people start to lose any sense of individual style and identity, the original terms lose their meanings — which is how ‘beats’ became ‘beatniks’ and Maynard G. Krebs became a household name.

The term ‘beat’ was coined by petty thief and drug addict Herbert Huncke who used the word to describe being down on your luck. To put it another way: you gotta pay your dues before you can sing the blues. It’s no wonder then that Beat Generation icon William S. Burroughs was embarrassed to tell his friends he received a monthy allowance from his family trust fund. Today’s hipsters are often spoiled trust fund kids who are so insecure, they can’t allow themselves to dance at rock shows (sans ecstasy), or even applaud after witnessing a good musical performance. So obsessed are they with being on the cutting edge of style or music, that once the general public embraces a certain band or fashion, it’s ridiculed. For the original hipster, turning people on to what they considered cool was a manifesto. Teenagers in the 60s were excited that The Beatles were not only bending the rules of rock music, but also forcing the ‘establishment’ to pay attention to the restless youth culture around the world.

What motivated me to write this post was a recent Time Out New York cover which read in large black letters: The Hipster Must Die! I was intrigued that such a magazine seemed to be biting the hand that feeds. The first cover article must have been written by someone born in the 80s. How else can one explain using the term “Elvis Costello glasses” to describe those square black plastic frames made famous by Buddy Holly? Such is the problem when a member of the current youth scene tries to look back and deconstruct the history behind their own fad-ridden scene. The inclusion of Kurt Cobain and ‘grunge culture’ is also rather odd. As someone born only a few years before Cobain, I can tell you that wearing long hair, plaid shirts and ripped jeans in High School was anti-fashion, and anti-cool. To quote The Bunny Brains: “Kurt saw the future and it wore designer plaid, and that disgusted him.”

In the Time Out lead article, a real estate broker explains that “the profile of the typical (Lower East Side) renter in the area is changing from the ‘counterculture hipster’ to the ‘more mainstream’ hipster and young professional.” In a series of interviews with old-school hipsters, Stephanie Stone explains that “New York is losing its diversity, all because of the mighty dollar. It’s pretty sad.” Just take a quick walk up and down Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and you will understand why the Polish immigrants in Greenpoint are so angry about the hipster invasion. They have lived in Greenpoint for generations, and now they see rents going up and old businesses closing.

So, can ‘New York Cool’ be saved? Naw. I guess it’s time to move to Buffalo where they have a real alternative art and music scene. Oh, and the hipsters there are actually friendly to everyone, not just those who spend half their paychecks at Urban Outfitters.

What do you see when you are
inside a star, inside a star?

What do you do when you are young?
Stare at the sun, stare at the sun

Did you perceive at the time
that you were blind, that you were blind?

I just finished reading the new paperback edition of Ann Finkerbeiner’s 2006 non-fiction book, The Jasons: The Secret History of Science’s Postwar Elite, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in post-war American history. Finkerbeiner dispels some of the myths surrounding this clandestine organization of brilliant scientists (including many Nobel laureates) who, in addition to their regular teaching and research positions at major universities and think tanks, have worked outside the scrutiny of the open scientific community in order to solve classified problems for the government. More importantly, it asks the tough moral questions surrounding the development and use of nuclear power, and "dual use" technologies. Finkerbeiner’s interviews with current and former Jason members — Freeman Dyson, Sid Drell, Richard Garwin, Charles Townes, Marvin Goldberger — are surprisingly casual, and very candid. All have given a lot of thought to their moral obligations as scientists, academics, citizens, and government advisors. Of course, the members of JASON (as they prefer) are very careful not to divulge any classified information. One Jason scientist insisted on being identified as Dr. X in order to remain anonymous. Apparently, being publicly identified as a Jason can be problematic.

The Arrogance of Physicists had been the book’s working title because, as the author explains, "a physicist can solve any problem in any field by figuring it out from first principles, from the ground up." And this gives the physicist a feeling of superiority to other fields of science, such as biology or chemistry. Apparently, physicists do not see this humorous term as an insult. Among the arrogant physicists of the Manhattan Project who advised Jasons’ first official members were Edward Teller, Hans Bethe, Enrico Fermi, and Robert Oppenheimer — known for his opposition to the hydrogen bomb during the early years of the Cold War, which resulted in his security clearance being revoked. Although they knew Germany’s scientists were also working to build an atomic bomb, they still felt a strong sense of moral responsibility. Many Jasons have dedicated their lives to ensuring that nuclear research is kept in civilian control, and that the international community prevents further proliferation and testing.

One of the main catalysts for the creation of Jason, was the Soviet’s successful 1957 launch of Sputnik and Sputnik II (which carried a dog about the same weight as an atomic warhead). Congress quickly demanded more defense research and better scientific education. Jason grew out of this swell of government funding but it was created by academics as an independent advisory organization in order to be as immune from the pressures of politics as possible. The logic being that only independent outsiders can offer the government unbiased advise based on pure science. Of course, Jason has always been politically savvy, otherwise they could not have survived until today.

In 1972, The Pentagon Papers exposed the Jasons as being involved in defense studies on the Vietnam war. Although Jason recommended that the endless bombing raids into North Vietnam be phased out, and although they concluded that the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Southeast Asia would have disastrous consequences, antiwar protesters picketed and threatened those Jasons outed in the documents. To be publicly lambasted as war criminals did not sit well for Jasons and many resigned. The problem for the Jasons harkened back to Oppenheimer’s concern that scientists might get carried away with the “technical sweetness of the project” and ignore the moral consequences.

Scientists must draw a line, however, between what they will or will not work on. Given that Jasons are motivated by patriotism, not just the passion for solving the big problems, they must find a balance between public service, and public responsibility. Of course, it is not surprising that some of the recommendations that Jason has made were ignored by the government: The SST was given the green light by the Nixon administration in direct opposition to a Jason study because the French and British were already building one; SDI was initially kept alive because it was a useful bargaining chip in negotiations with the Soviet Union, and SDI is still being funded even though its functionality has yet to be proven.

The Jasons continue to be involved with many of today’s controversial headlines: climate change, surveillance technology, genetics, etc. The fundamental lesson I took from this book is simple: like good intelligence analysis, scientific advice must be independent of politics if we value the truth. Also, it has been demonstrated that following Jason report recommendations can save the taxpayer billions of dollars which otherwise may have been spent on expensive projects doomed to failure. The consequences of ignoring unbiased data in favor of narrow political agendas can be disastrous for our country and the world.

Mike Milazzo recently handed me a copy of his first solo album, The World Outside, which showcases his talents as an accomplished songwriter, singer, guitarist, bassist, and mandolin player. His songs traverse the familiar emotional landscape of destructive love affairs, artistic self-doubt, and the bitter philosophy of middle age. All through The World Outside you can hear the echoes of Neil Young, R.E.M., Bob Dylan, Allman Brothers, Jorma Kaukonen, and even a smidgen of Guns ‘n Roses. I’m confident that songs like “Don’t Call Me Baby” and “You Never Know” would fit quite well on WFUV’s playlist. His My Space profile sums it up best: “Mike Milazzo blends folk, blues, rock and bluegrass music into an original, yet familiar sound. With a dark resonance in his voice, he sings with an honesty that feels like home.” The World Outside also features long-time dependable drummer Martin Stroh, veteran DJ Meg Griffin on backing vocals, Bob Meo on Clarinet, Robin Gager on violin, and Stan Hammond on organ and piano. For over a decade Mike Milazzo has played in many New York area bands, including The Juicemen, The U.S. Hairforce, and Dweller, who had their second 15 minutes when Stern plugged their single “Sex Change” on his radio show. In addition to his live performances and solo projects, Mike Milazzo is currently a member of those crazy skate punks, The Boardlords, who are earning a reputation for high-energy shows and decidedly odd venues.