TODAY
Women’s Basketball vs. Virginia Tech at 7 p.m. in the Convocation Center. It’s also Residential Hall Night: greatest attendance wins free pizza.

The spring semester Spiritual Information Fair will be from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the UC patio. The various student religious organizations of the University will provide information on the variety of religious life on campus. KFC and kosher pizza will be served.

Come to the Teach for America Information Session, at 4:00 p.m. in the Toppel Career Center. Teach For America is the national corps of recent college graduates who commit two years to teach in urban and rural public schools and become lifelong leaders in the effort to expand opportunity for children. Final application deadline is Feb 21, 2003. For questions or more information contact admissions@teachforamerica.org, 800-832-1230 ext. 225.

Hispaniola Day (Haiti & Dominican Republic) in the UC Lower Lounge from 11 – 8 p.m.

“Dispelling Myths About the Caribbean,” Flamingo Ballroom D, 7 p.m.

WEDNESDAY JANUARY 29

The Hispanic Scholarship Fund Scholar Chapter will hold a Goldman Sachs Learning Modules/ Leadership Development Workshop, at 7 p.m. in UC 233. Direct any questions to RA8046@students.law.miami.edu.

Jamaica/Trinidad Day, UC Patio, 11 – 3 p.m.

Caribbean Extravaganza, International Lounge, 8 p.m.
THURSDAY JANUARY 30

The Hurricane baseball team and head coach Jim Morris invite you to the 2003 “First Pitch” Banquet featuring guest speaker Ron Fraser, Thursday, January 30, at the Radisson Mart Plaza Hotel, Royal Poinciana Ballroom, (711 NW. 72nd Ave.). The banquet will start with cocktails at 6 p.m. and dinner at 7 p.m. Price per person is $70, or $560 per table of eight. All reservations must be made in advance. The registration deadline is Thursday, Jan 23. For more information call 305-284-6699.

Caribbean Fun Night, UC Patio, 4 – 7 p.m.

Karaoke Night, Rat, 7 – 10 p.m.

FRIDAY JANUARY 31
Come out and party with young Arab-Americans featuring DJ Nile spinning the latest and hottest Arabic and international music at the Rathskeller. Argeela Night is from 9 p.m. to 12 a.m. Email oasisofum@yahoogroups.com.

Virgin Islands/Puerto Rico Friendship Day

Resident Assistant Applications are due at the Department of Residence Halls Office in the North wing of Eaton Residential College, by 5 p.m.

Sportsfest, the three-day competition between the residential colleges and apartment area, kicks off at the Rat at 5 p.m.

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 1

Take a FREE GMAT, LSAT, or MCAT practice test at Kaplan’s Test Drive. To enroll, call 305-284-0090.
TUESDAY FEBRUARY 11

Are you in the process of selecting a major or considering a change of major? Are you possibly interested in adding a major? Toppel Career Center will have a Majors Fair from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Whitten University Center Lower Lounge. Come talk with faculty representatives from these Schools and Colleges: Arts & Sciences, Business, Communication, Education and Nursing. The Pre-Law and Honors Programs will also have representatives to whom you will be able to talk.

WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 19

The Hispanic Scholarship Fund Scholar Chapter will hold an Alumni-Mentor Reception at 7 p.m. in UC 233. Direct any questions to RA8046@students.law.miami.edu.

Nomination forms are now available in the Academic Development Center (UC 201) for the Nu Kappa Tau Chapter of Mortar Board-The national college senior honor society. Nominees must be of Junior standing (60-90 credits) with a GPA of 3.391 and excel in scholarship, leadership, and service. Nomination forms are due in the ADC on 2/10 by 5:00 p.m.

Join the Wellness Center on Wednesday, Feb. 5th from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Wellness Center Atrium for Healthy Heart day, an event providing information to protect both aspects of your heart: physical and emotional. For more information, contact Janet Tiberian at 8-6524.

The National Endowment for the Humanities is offering up to 15 internships in Washington, D.C., for the summer 2003. College students entering their junior or senior year in fall 2003 are eligible. NEH interns receive $4,000 for 10 weeks of work. Past interns have written articles for Humanities magazine, researched emerging fields in the humanities, and developed web-based tools for gathering humanities-related information. The application deadline is January 21, 2003. Applications are being accepted online at http://www.neh.gov.

Housing Sign-Up Information Meetings: Monday, January 27th, 8:00pm in Eaton College, Classroom #148; Tuesday, January 28th, 8:00pm in Hecht College Classroom #101; Wednesday, January 29th, 8:00pm in Mahoney/Pearson College Classroom #101. Be financially registered for the spring semester and pay the $250 non-refundable deposit through the cashier on the first floor of the Ashe Building by February 21st. Those students will receive a deposit confirmation letter the week prior to Spring Break-this letter will contain your sign-up priority number and instructions on when to sign up by the week of March 3rd.

Contact the Department of Residence Halls at (305) 284-4505 or Housing@miami.edu.

Drawing Conclusions, a new, unusual exhibit at the Buena Vista Building, sounds like Kraft but runs deep into our subjectivities about making marks on things. Give Miami credit for supporting work that has guts. CNN images and worries about the future blend into lines, color and language that is the post-modern landscape.

The people whose work went into this show are merging design and concept to take feeling a few steps forward. Among Miamian names Weston Charles, David Rohn, Martin Oppel, and Bhakti Baxter is fifteen-year-old from Overtown, Tavaris Evans, who decided to do art instead of drugs. His piece “Zeta” is made of electrical tape and oil pastel on paper–raw, powerful art.

Curator Nina Arias sees the show “extending the definition of drawing.” “You can’t define drawing [just as] right or wrong,” she says. Who we are, why do we do as we do, awe with existence and magic inspire this exhibition. It takes out the borders and dividers then loses the ground beneath and where it lands will pan out in the future. It is relevant because it lingers with a feeling of eerie bewilderment. The mind reads it and the heart wants to run because no one likes to look at him or herself for too long at a time.

As far as the importance of drawing to art goes, this exhibit shows that just as clay or wood are mediums teeming with metaphor, the mark and the mark’s home give artists the opportunity to redefine the artistic process. Humans have a strange need to express themselves perpetually and uniquely–pouring your soul finely on paper leaves your mark for the world to see, just as tagging and graffiti stamps your signature on the streets. Some might call this part of the evolution process.

Weston Charles, an alumni of the MFA program at UM and one of the founders of the alternative art space Locust Projects, provided his “Lipstick and Doggie Dick Series” of oil on paper drawings which explore the associations of sexuality in female teenage culture and the humanization of accessory dogs. It has become a stable in South Beach for women and men to have small canines that are subjected to humiliatingly whimsical treatment by their masters. One couple from the beach put a pink ribbon on the head of their poodle and when asked what her name was, they responded, “She is a He. This is South Beach honey.”

Some of the work here is good and some of the work is revolutionary, though it is all interesting. Miami isn’t a big shot yet such as cities like New York for American Art. What we have, though, is the massive Caribbean and Latin influence as well as a “healthy” relationship to Europe. The frontier of contemporary art is pulsating out of the Design District. For anyone who is seeking a refreshing soul in Miami, it lies under 395 and 195 is fully self-sustainable. Apart from the Everglades and the ocean, the Design District is most natural thing around here.

Drawing Conclusions opens for an encore at the Buena Vista Building,180 NE 39th St., 2nd Floor Suite #218, on Saturday, February 15 from 7:00 to 11:00pm and the closing is Friday February 28 from 7:00 to 11:00pm. Call 305-576-5166 for more info.

Alex Saleeby can be reached at claysaleeby@hotmail.com

Walking into Lion Video, you probably won’t notice the plaques hung on the inside wall: Best Independent Video Store, Best Video Rental Store and a few other accolades from the Miami news-magazines. Instead, your focus will be on making it to the center of the store, where you’ll hit, sometimes literally, three long, narrow aisles of the most diverse and obscure selection of DVDs and tapes around.

Lion Video is in its ninth year of operation at its tiny Coral Gables location. Driving along Ponce De Leon in search of it is a tricky, almost cinematic endeavor, so expect a few illegal U-turns and spontaneous outbursts of loud cursing, but once there, it’s all worth it. Lion Video is a movie lover’s dream. The aisles are stocked with foreign films, American classics and new releases. The only problem is that in its nine-year history, Lion Video has amassed so many tapes and DVDs that space is becoming a concern.

“We’re running out of space, because we have so many films now,” said Ubaldo Zambrano – Le Coeur, one of Lion Video’s two owners. “We’re trying to make it better; to give it more space.”

About 75 percent of the store’s collection is made up of foreign films, the majority from France, Spain, Mexico and Italy. One of Lion Video’s best ideas is to put the works of an acclaimed director on a shelf entirely to its own. Spain’s Pedro Almodovar (Talk to Her), American filmmaker John Cassavetes (A Woman Under the Influence) and independent pioneer Jim Jarmusch (Permanent Vacation) all have sections dedicated to their films. The store also displays a large collection of classic films from Alfred Hitchcock and Woody Allen.

Based on a short visit to the store, it seems that Ubaldo, Ubi for short, is the heart of Lion Video. His main responsibility is to manage the foreign section, and he fills a small rack in the store with his favorite French films. The regulars all seem to know him, waving goodbye as they exit and hello as they enter.

Ubi’s voice is calm and quiet, and his French heritage is evident in his accent. He seems shy when talking about himself, but doesn’t hesitate to rattle off a well-checked list of his favorite French films and some of the store’s best rentals. His love for foreign films is apparent upon meeting him, as well as his devotion to his customers.

Ubi insisted that this interview take place outside of the store. “It’s quieter out here,” he shouts above the stream of passing traffic, and he’s probably right. Ubi estimates that 400 people come in and out of the store each day, and while that might seem a bit of an exaggeration, it’s easy to see where he’s coming from. For a store not much bigger than the comedy section at Blockbuster, there are at least 10 customers inside at a time picking up rentals for Saturday night. It’s heartwarming to see many of them on cell phones with their spouses, talking excitedly about the next movie from the director of the film they loved so much last weekend. Or, at least better than the guys lurking around Blockbuster contemplating whether to pick up Collateral Damage or Men in Black II.

As Ubi stands on the sidewalk answering questions, customers actually greet him on the way to their cars. They seem genuinely happy with their choices and with Lion Video as a whole, a welcome alternative to the contractual greetings of faceless video chains. Yet Ubi refuses to produce the Jerry Maguire-type rant against money-grubbing video rental conglomerates that we’d expect. Instead, he understands Lion Video’s place amongst his competitors.

“Blockbuster is a good company,” Ubi offers. “I’m not going to put them down in any way. They are a good company and they specialize in American films, and they have good deals, and they have a product that people want to see. But some people like foreign [films]. Many of our customers will go to Blockbuster to rent American films, and then to get a taste of foreign films, they come here.”

On this peculiarly cold afternoon, Lion Video has three additional employees alongside Ubi working the counter. Alain Hernandez has worked there for seven months. His motivations for getting a job at an independent video store do not follow the typical indie-hipster sentiments. Alain had never been a big movie fan, rarely encountering a foreign film. After a friend got him the job at Lion, however, he started to watch some of the movies.

“There’s so many different genres out there that I didn’t even know existed until I worked here. Isaac [Santos], the owner, he’s awesome at catching these rare, independent foreign movies.”

Alain goes on to explain the movies he’s most inspired by; a guy who seven months ago had never heard of Lion Video, now discusses an interest in Japanese directors and films. He mentions how Ubi teaches the staff about foreign films, and how he even recommends some of his favorites to inquiring customers.

While talking with Ubi about American thrillers, the differences between DVD and VHS, and the impact that subtitles have on customers’ choices, he gets that look in his eye – a welcomingly pierced tap of endless discussion. Avoiding Harry Knowles-style buttering, it’s the look that grandparents get when they talk about their youth, and the look that old retired athletes get when they reminisce about their playing days. But Ubi is only in his 20’s. He became a co-owner five years ago, joining the store’s founder, Isaac Santos.

It’s clear that Ubi loves movies, like most people. But above all, he loves introducing customers to movies that they will love. ‘This is my hobby, this is my work, this is my home,” he says.

Shawn Wines can be reached at shawnwines@aol.com.

On record, U.K. pop/rock outfit Coldplay are a relaxing set of sounds to which one may proverbially “chill” whilst listening. Their two Capitol releases, Parachutes and A Rush Of Blood To The Head have provided some of the warmer and listenable radio hits of the past few years. Some of the members are fat or have bad haircuts, and so in their videos, they are portrayed as very serious individuals…real artists. In person, while not too far removed from this concept, the group steps up to the plate when it comes to adding energy to their set.
Coldplay let out the first notes of live music at our very own Convocation Center on Wednesday night, January 22, and it was quite obvious that this was no small band from overseas any longer. Opening with the first track off of their second LP, “Politik,” frontman Chris Martin showed what it is to be a professional touring rock singer. Whether his schtick is a carbon copy night for night is irrelevant. Here is an enthusiastic personality that breathes honesty on stage. Perhaps after a few more years of gaining popularity, he’ll lead his band out of a giant lemon onto the stage, but for now, Martin is the top candidate for the dentist office version of Thom Yorke, writing political causes on his hand, and shaking his head like it’s about to come off. Martin provided several original dance moves, hopping about to songs I always thought you were supposed to sit still to, sunbathe to or study with for your history quiz. On the rollicking b-side “The One I Love,” with a large screen displaying each member, the rest of the band joined in and tapped their toes rather heavily.
Each song, pulled from their two albums was not that far off from the taped versions. They added a bit of change to songs like “Don’t Panic” with a longer intro, and “Shiver” with a much harder break towards the end. It is maybe too apparent that the beast belongs to Chris Martin, with little other than repetition contributed on the other three members’ behalf. Guitarist Johnny Buckland is probably one of the most boring players I have seen live, (or at least paid $32.75 to study) and on songs like “The Scientist” which had all the many couples in the arena slow-dancing, he leaves way too much out, letting the song sound like a backing track if Martin isn’t singing.
Let’s not forget that this is a pop/rock band, and it isn’t necessary that each song sounds drastically different, or each member confuses your eardrums. Coldplay have a fantastic light show (on “Yellow” the spotlights turn the crowd “all yellow”…), a tight set of numbers that both music snobs and pseudo-yuppies can enjoy, and even sleeveless t-shirts available for both men and women! Now if only they had sold beer at the arena…

Michael John Hancock can be reached at Wkndprjct@aol.com.

Typing these little blurbs about the following skate videos, each of which has helped shape the destiny of pop culture, I wasn’t sure what to do. If you’re a skateboarder and know of these videos, then I’m sorry I didn’t break down the angle of the ankle on so-and-so’s inward heelflip. For those of you who have no idea what the hell a heelflip is, then read on without worry, and even if you do, keep reading.

These videos broke conventions (like never paying royalties for any song used), said, “kiss my ass” to authority and somehow managed to garner respect by doing so.

So, to all the fakers and biters who think that producing a video on your own is original, and that it hasn’t been done: do your research. The skate video has made originality hard to find.

Plan B
Questionable
1992
In 1992, a newly formed skate company called Plan B released what many consider to be the most important skateboard video of all time. As soon as the video begins, a barrage of tricks mixed in with endless street scuffles shoves you into your seat. Though the skaters in this video suffered from the horrendous fashion trend of size 50 pink jeans and T-shirts that look like nightgowns, their skating makes everything else secondary. Pat Duffy, the first skater featured in the video, has yet to be equaled today. The endless assault on handrails has just entered the public eye as of late (every time you see a handrail with screws through it, it’s because of skateboarding). From Primus to Metallica, to the first appearance of Cali rap crew Hieroglyphics, the video’s soundtrack is rich. If you haven’t heard of Hiero, then check Souls of Mischief’s ’93 ’til Infinity – hotness. Plan B’s crew runs equally deep. The amazing Colin McKay (no more than 15) and Danny Way linked together, a friendship that probably spawned at least one pair of your shoes in high school. That’s right, these guys are the originators of DC Shoes – see you at PacSun! This was also Mike Ternasky’s (R.I.P.) first solo project and established him as the premiere skate video producer for the next five years. So why is this video so important? Basically, it was the first time technical tricks looked good, period. Watch Rodney Mullen’s part and it’s hard to believe that instead of starring in skate movies he was reduced to Christian Slater’s stunt double in Gleaming the Cube. This man invented almost every trick under the sun, thus “What a Wonderful World” plays throughout segment in Questionable.

World Industries
20 Shot Sequence
1994

After it settled in people’s minds that tech skateboarding was here to stay, World found a way to keep it gangster. Swiping three songs from Method Man’s Tical, a kid getting beat down to start a section, an ex-crack dealer (Kareem Campbell) as a “professional” skateboarder, and a pre-Osbournes appearance by Jason Dill, this video is all over the map. The Menace squad gave kids a blueprint on how to make a living for 10 years off a thug image, but considering one of their riders, Fabian Alomar, has pursued a career in porn and Shiloh Greathouse’s part was cut short due to a prison sentence… well, these guys were pretty far gone to begin with. If you know what World Industries has become (Flame Boy, Wet Willy – kiddie skate stuff basically) it’s funny that the company’s roots started with a bunch of delinquents making fun of corporate businesses, plus I think it’s owned by a Japanese corporation now. Anyway, basically every rider in this video has started at least a mildly lucrative business involving skate affiliated goods. As for Steve Rocco, the owner of World Industries, well… he has his own private golf course that he races his Porsches on; not bad for a guy that made his living doing pirouettes in pink shorts (yeah, he used to skate too).

Toy Machine
Welcome To Hell
1996

This video threw a wrench into the gears of skateboarding and quite honestly made machines out of the riders. Each part blazed trails and gave images to people, via little voice over intros by their homies. Huge handrails and a bunch of kids with no fear was the analytical cinematic recipe for success. As proven by the worst slam section ever compiled (yeah, the “slam section” sounds lame, watch it and shut up). If you want to see someone slide across a parking lot on his face or turn his foot backward, then this is the video for you. The soundtrack brought Iron Maiden and Sabbath to the table, complementing the fatalistic skating (check the title), which is mind blowing. Jamie Thomas, here and forever, will be recognized as having made a generation of skateboarders think anything was possible. Each trick drops, and before you can figure out where it came from, another one knocks the last one right out of your head. Welcome To Hell, was the first time a video made sense to people who didn’t skateboard, it wasn’t just guys on ramps anymore. What East Coast rap did for hip hop in the mid ’90s, Welcome to Hell did for skateboarding. The final amazing thing about this vid is that somehow all the skate rats who thought rap was the only music in the world were suddenly diehard heavy metal fans. Anything that hit hard was accepted.

Girl
Mouse
1997

Spike Jonze, yeah you know him. Being John Malkovich and Adaptation ring a bell? Anyway, if you’re a nerd you probably know he made music videos before films (“Sabotage,” “If I Only Had a Brain,” “Cannonball”) and skate videos before that. If you’re not a nerd, like me, congratulations! Spike Jonze broke into Hollywood through a skate video called Video Days, for a company owned by World Industries called Blind. Enough history, if you’re that interested you’re on the Internet by now. Mouse is what every skateboarder wishes would be released today. Original short films (that are actually well-made) mixed in with the skating, which is still incredible, and a score that takes the cake. Herbie Hancock probably never envisioned the amazing synthesis of his music and skating, yet these tracks seem destined for the video. Mike York’s section features a rap song made exclusively for him as he cruises past the crack rocks and graffiti pits of Venice Beach, a spot since torn down (people still bite this style to little avail, check Peter Smolik in 2001’s Guilty from Shorty’s). There is no way to describe the skating in this video. As I like to say, for those who know, they know… but everyone can appreciate it; that’s the beauty of Mouse, it’s a film, and a damn fine one. Jonze’s filmmaking (technical jargon aside), shows how dedicated the skaters were to his vision of what the video had to be. The result was so fresh and original; well, it has yet to be paralleled.

One final thought: Today everyone knows a skateboarder; skateboarding is more popular than Little League in the United States (a statistical fact). The skaters in these particular videos were doing it for no reason other than to have fun and progress the art of skating out of a bonded love, not the love of dough. Seek these videos out, simply for their snapshots of ’90s history; how skating melded together music, race, world travel, and, quite simply, freedom, and documented it all on videocassette.

Sven Barth can be reached at big_sven@hotmail.com.

Like whoa. Kid 606 is running through a Brave New World of electronic music like some bugged eyed Apple terrorist. This is a bleak future polluted with sharp, broken sounds, but it has irrefutably arrived, and like Sid Vicious going into convulsions, it’s bombed out glee for the sake of nothing. Well, actually…

Born Miguel Depedro, this fast talking 23-year old took up residence in San Diego, California after some kidhood spent in Caracas, Venezuela, and soon enough he was banging out “gabba Emo” on his laptop for the world to never hear. Commonly associated with IDM (intelligent dance music), Kid 606 stands out from the scene’s binary code encryption by individualizing his deconstructed compositions with humorous song titles like “It’ll Take Millions in Plastic Surgery to Turn Me Black,” “Now I Wanna Be a Cowboy,” and “Smack My Glitch Up.”

In truth, a surprising amount of Kid 606’s material does not rely on shock value via blatant noise. His 2000 release, P.S. I Love You, snapped nerds’ necks when it toiled against his punk-Tron image (something he loathes) by coinciding perfectly with its cover – a rendering of two Lego-like clouds. His last LP, The Action Packed Mentalist Brings You the Fucking Jams, was a highly sought after disc released through his Tigerbeat6 and Violent Turd labels that literally stole Missy Elliot and Jay-Z tracks and tortured them with elastic static.

While major labels are caught in a booby trap of licensing and technology, Kid 606 is way ahead of them, ducking and weaving independently, making songs like “MP3 Killed the CD Star.” Tongue in cheek or not, his style is double clicking on the informational rapidity of ideas like few artists/businesses in modern music.

This is a Life & Art interview with Kid 606 before his performance at Revolver last Friday.

Q: Would you/could you ever do the soundtrack to an Anime flick?
K606: It’s funny, I just got asked. This new type Anime magazine in Texas, they import all of this weird stuff like Devil Girl, even like Sailor Moon and sci-fi; they were, like, “Yo, you wanna do some licensing?” I was watching some of the videos they sent to our office, and some of it was, like, crazy porn – which is weird because they have Anime porn for girls – which is great – people get with that in Japan. So they’re going to pick a few songs and throw them on something.

Q: I’ve read that you have fans who e-mail you before a show saying they’re going to introduce themselves, but you never actually meet them – then a few days later, another e-mail pops up.
K606: That’s the weird IDM fan base contingent. Like, they’ll say, “Yo, I’m coming to your show, blah blah,” because everyone knows everyone’s e-mail address. I’ll e-mail them back saying, “Cool, yeah, say hi, what’s up,” and then I play the show and no one comes up, then I get an e-mail asking me if I saw them wearing a certain shirt that night. Then again, most people who like IDM don’t go to shows. It’s a weird thing – our fans are young and can’t get in, and most people into IDM don’t go out anyway. When I encounter people, they tend to explain how they’re friends make fun of me, but they stand up for me, or they’ll say, “I don’t like this record at all, or this record, or this record, I like this one.”

Q: Do you sense that listeners debate your records as if each one decides the fate of an entire movement?
K606: People totally think it’s planned out because they have time to think about it, and I don’t. If I honestly thought about what I was doing I couldn’t do it. That’s why you see musicians with wide creative gaps in their careers – its self-consciousness and also mid-life crisis shit, really unnecessary. I don’t read the press either, I used to, but it completely manipulated all my thoughts and ruined a lot of artists around me. I read stupid shit like The Source – Benzino versus Eminem (laughs).

Q: Have you ever had a nerd stalker?
K606: Yeah, but just Internet stalkers.

Q: What are the next really important releases for Tigerbeat 6?
K606: There’s this record coming up, it means the world to me, it’s with Kevin Martin from Techno Animal, it’s called the Bug. It’s all ragged dance hall stuff, it’s got Daddy Freddy, who was once ranked as the world’s fastest MC – the Bug is the illest stuff on earth. The next DJ/Rupture record is next level – it’s all original stuff. I have two records coming out as well, one on Ipecac and one on Tigerbeat, and they’re totally different.

Q: Did you play a lot of Tetris as a kid?
K606: I don’t play video games often, but that’s my favorite game. I love flying to Japan because they have Tetris in the planes and everyone’s like “tschka, tshcka.”

Q: What’s your favorite shape to slam down into a gap and wipe out everything?
K606: (pauses) The T.

Q: Visually, what do you extract from your music?
K606: My dad’s a filmmaker and I definitely think about visuals a lot. But just because it’s electronic music, I don’t feel that I need to put a visual behind it. I have to justify my music, and the only stuff I want to release is the music that sounds totally different. I notice that people in Miami making electronic music are weirdly secluded, they don’t want to squash each other, but for me it raises the stakes – it’s a form of flattery, almost a beneficial marketing ploy. The reason why Autechre got bigger than Aphex Twin is more people were imitating Autechre – it was a simpler thing to try and do. One person doing something, no matter how amazing, is only one person – one person doing something with a thousand imitators is a fucking scene, it’s a culture.

Q: Back to films, which most accurately paints the future?
K606: Good question. Shit cakes. Everyone hated it, but I actually thought Vanilla Sky was pretty good. Dude, Battlefield Earth – the most inaccurate future depiction. Do you know how Scientology got Dianetics onto the bestseller list? It happened in Miami. They were basically having their people buy the books out of the bookstore – buying their own books – so it would be a hit, like cheating on Soundscan like Def Jam’s always doing. But…Vanilla Sky, what happens in it, I definitely see people putting money into. Like with Blade Runner, I don’t see all of our efforts being put into nice architecture – bullshit – people are going to put money into crazy drugs, long life, cloning – pleasure – not “Future World” and living on Mars.

For more info visit www.tigerbeat6.com.

Hunter Stephenson can be reached at hurricaneaccent@hotmail.com.

Back in the early ’90s, triggered by an onslaught of groups in Seattle, grunge was in full effect and it may not be faltering just yet. Pearl Jam, a forerunning grunge group characterized by Eddie Vedder’s agonized singing and riffed-up guitar chords, announced a 48-city North American tour starting in April at the Pepsi Center in Denver in concordance with the release of their 7th studio effort, Riot Act. The album sold about 393,000 copies in 10 weeks and debuted at Number 5 on Billboard’s top 200.

Not only does talk show host Jerry Springer like to make an engaging travesty of ordinary, dim-witted America, but he’s considering running for the Senate as a Democrat next year against Republican George Voinovich. Though he acknowledged that his reputation may work against him, the 59 year-old millionaire says he has the resources for the campaign and claims he wants to “be helpful in rebuilding the party.”

Unorthodox film visionary Quentin Tarantino is back on track. Scheduled to be released on October 10, 2003, his latest directorial feature, Kill Bill, stars Uma Thurman as a former assassin who, surviving a bullet in the head, vies for revenge against the boss who betrayed her (David Carradine) and his crew of international murderers. Sounds pulpy.

R. Kelly can’t get enough of teenage girls: he was recently arrested at a Miami-Dade County hotel for owning 12 child pornography photos, 3 of which depict him in sexual conduct with a minor. He’s already facing similar charges in Illinois.

Life & Art could usually care less about gossip floating around Hollywood, but this shit caught us off guard: A Tribe Called Quest frontman Q-Tip was spotted making out with Tom Cruise’s ex-wife, Nicole Kidman, at some hip sushi joint. She must love that hip hop tip. Moreover, Tip’s been getting over his problems at Arista since they shelved his Kamaal: The Abstract and is in negotiations with Dreamworks, while rumors of a Tribe reunion hold little truth since the group reportedly turned down $500,000 to perform in Las Vegas. Tension’s still in the air.