You can listen to the entire interview at KUPS 90.1FM The Sound.

Boeckner and Perry of the Handsome Furs looking, uh, handsome; courtesy of Sub Pop Records.

The Bygone Bureau: Dan, you’re a member of Wolf Parade also. Do you have any other projects you’re a part of?

Dan: No, I’m always talking with friends about starting up some bands, but for now they’re just pipe dreams.

And Alexei, you’re a short story writer?

Alexei: Yeah, I write a lot of stories, and I write some poetry as well. And some short little anecdotal things.

Do you have any books published?

Alexei: I self-publish them and then sell them on tour.

You have one album out, Plague Park. And that’s a real place?

Alexei: That is. It’s Huerto Puisto in Helsinki, where a bunch of plague victims were buried. It sort of started as a place that was outside of Helsinki, but then Helsinki sort of grew around it. Now it’s the one green, beautiful area in the very cubic, sort of Soviet façade of the rest of Helsinki. It’s where all these kids go and drink and have good life and stuff. And it’s just weird that it’s about all these dead people

A lot of your songs on the album talk about living both in a big city and in rural towns. Is there one you prefer over the other?

Alexei: There isn’t. That’s sort of the thing is that I don’t think we’ve come to any conclusions about which is better. They’re both really hard–and good. But hard. I mean, whenever I’m in the city I miss being where insects are, and whenever I’m in a small town, I miss the culture that is in metropolises. Metropoli?

(laughs)

Dan: Metropoli!

Which city are you referring to, if any in particular, on the track “Handsome Furs Hate This City”?

Alexei: We can’t tell you. No, it’s different every night. We just like to mess around with it.

Dan: We wrote it in Los Angeles, but it’s not really about any particular city. I had a couple cities in mind when we were writing it. Like, it was kind of a conflation of Vancouver, L.A., Toronto, and even Montreal, you know, but it’s not particularly one city. But it’s fun to pretend like it is about a city when you’re in other towns. It really gets people fucking riled up.

Alexei: Right. When we were in San Francisco we were like “This is about L.A.!” and everyone was like, “Woo!”. And we were like, “Really? I didn’t know there was this rivalry going on. Sweet. Now we know how to get you!”.

(laughs)

I read that the point of your sound is to make it as sparse and repetitive as possible. What is it about that sound that appeals to you?

Alexei: It’s just interesting. It’s just a challenge to do that. With a two-piece, we wanted to have a lot going on where there wasn’t a lot going on because then it forces different things from the listener to fill in certain blanks. And I think our sound has actually changed quite a lot.

Dan: Now we’re repetitive and really obnoxiously loud.

Alexei: But also more danceable now.

Dan: To answer this question totally honestly, I really believe–and this is just personal artistic taste–that a lot of underground music kind of holds itself above, say, the pop medium, the standard. I think one kind of really fucking disappointing trend in “indie rock” music is giant, enormous baroque arrangements with esoteric instruments. But everybody has the same esoteric instruments! Everybody has a fucking xylophone. For a while when the Neutral Milk Hotel record came out–and they did it beautifully–there was an accordion musical saw, and then all of a sudden, all these bands have an accordion music saw.

And now [there are] these giant, bloated progressive rock arrangements. I think that shit is dead. It’s a dead end. That was proved in the ‘70s when, like “Tarkus” came out, you know? It’s basically progressive rock, right? And there’s some great progressive rock, obviously, and there are some people doing amazing things in that format. But for me, writing these songs with Lex in this band was born out of frustration and a reaction against that. And I know this isn’t going to win me any of whatever today’s version of punk points are. Internet points? Fucking Xiu Xiu points or whatever, you know?

(laughs)

You can see it any era of music: Something becomes popular, a certain sound becomes popular. And I think it’s time for indie rock to just stop doing that. Even my other band is an offender in that. But I really respect bands like No Age, who are also on Sub Pop Records. They’re great. No Age are just drums, guitar, and electronics. That works for them, and it’s very direct and immediate.

But yeah, unicorns, crystal goblets, castles, fucking whatever. Phantoms? Just that fairy-tale imagery has become the new lexicon. It’s as boring and standard as 1977 punk, or like crust punks, or “fuck the man.” It’s totally predictable. If I’m sitting here and listening to a song, I don’t want to puzzle over something someone wrote just off the top of their head last minute in the studio.

Alexei: I want it to be sexy and cool.

When did you two meet and start working together?

Alexei: We met while we were working in a really shitty telemarketing office in Montreal. We were both working on various projects and they ended up colliding. A few years ago. About two years ago, right?

Dan: We met, like, three or four years ago.

Alexei: Yeah, but I mean two years of working?

Dan: Yeah, two years of togetherness.

So you’re working on a new album for 2008. And you’re working on the title Face Control.

Alexei: Yeah, face control is a door policy in Moscow that they use in these really fancy clubs where people are paying five to ten grand just to reserve tables at these places. But even those people who have paid that money are still subject to face control. So they can arrive at the door and the bouncer can be like (in Russian accent), “I don’t think so.” I don’t like what you’re wearing kind of thing. And there’s one dude whose nickname has become Face Control because he has denied Russia’s top super model three times. And if she’s not getting in, who the fuck is? It’s so bizarre.

Dan: It’s a verb too. You can be like, “Dude, I’m super bummed; I got face controlled.” It’s totally Russian, though. The vibe there is nothing is sugarcoated. It’s not politically correct. You are literally face controlled.

Alexei: At least it’s upfront. There’s something interesting about that

Dan: Those two words sound great together, though.

When do you think the new album will come out?

Dan: It depends on Sub Pop. It’ll depend on what they do with the Wolf Parade record.

Alexei: It’ll get out some point this year. We’ll be done by mid-June.

Is it much different than Plague Park?

Alexei: It is. I think it’s quite a bit faster and maybe a bit rock, too.

Dan: It’s a lot louder, that’s for sure.

The Handsome Furs’ latest release, Plague Park, is out now on Sub Pop Records.

Handsome Furs website
Handsome Furs MySpace

Reinvest in a stronger currency

Our weak US dollar is making it difficult to purchase goods and services abroad. The dollar reached an all-time low against the British pound last November and a record low against the euro as recently as February. It’s time to start investing in a currency that will stay strong in the face of a US economic recession. That’s right. I’m talking about World of Warcraft gold.

Just below China, the fantastical land of Azeroth is the world’s fastest growing economy. But unlike the Chinese yuan, Warcraft gold is not pegged to the US dollar, which covers your ass in the event that the next administration is led by a 71-year-old Beach Boys fan. So take that handy $600 Economic Stimulus Package rebate and reinvest in gold. Admittedly though, the currency is often volatile to investor confidence, unsound domestic fiscal policies, and Orc raiding parties.

Relieve dependency on fossil fuels

What people need to understand is that buying a more fuel-efficient automobile isn’t going to save our country from its dependence on petroleum. Gas prices will keep rising to adjust to US demand, and in the end, hybrid cars don’t mitigate the problem but extend it. The solution: drive less and scooter more.

Have you heard of the Segway? I saw a couple overweight security guards riding these around the Tacoma Mall last weekend, and let me tell you, this shit is the future. This brand new technology will be the savior of our transportation crisis. Five years from now, if not sooner, everyone will be riding these two-wheeled bad boys in lieu of cars. I’ll be surprised if anyone is even walking.

Some people have suggested using plain ol’ public transportation. That’s just crazy!

Embrace rapid climate change

Have you ever stopped to consider that global warming climate change climate variability anthropogenic global warming might be a good thing? I was in Duluth, Minnesota this winter and decided that no place on Earth should be that fucking cold. The solution is to start taking action and making sure that no place on Earth is that fucking cold.

In fact, I’ve been trying to encourage global warming by spraying at least one entire can of Aerosol into the atmosphere every day. If every single person makes little changes in their life, the greater impact can save this planet from the scourge of nature.

When you think about it, we really don’t need nature. I mean, when was the last time you went to the park for a reason other than to buy pot? All of the benefits of “the outdoors” can be enjoyed watching Planet Earth, which was recorded in a higher definition than real life. Also, you can get all the exercise you need from playing Nintendo Wii.

Hell, if it’s warmer out, we might turn up the heat less and save a few bucks on our utilities bill. Now that is fucking progress!

Such a landscape would be impossible to traverse quickly without tunnels, so most of the train ride is spent in shadow. Then the darkness tears away in a blur of concrete, exposing the most breathtaking landscape you’ve ever seen. This happens over and over. The last of these increasingly stunning unveilings showed me my destination: Interlaken, appropriately set between two crisp lakes wrapped in Alps.

I discovered Interlaken through a combination of serendipity and irresponsible travel planning. I had three days to kill between leaving Italy and returning to Amsterdam, and thought it might be nice to spend a little time outdoors. I figured that any place in the Alps was as good as any other; all I needed was a cheap place to stay. So I cropped a Google Maps view around Switzerland and northeastern France and searched on the word “hostel.” Take a quick look through that list and see if you can guess which item caught my attention. I’m sure you’ll agree that the only acceptable answer is “Mystery Hostel.”

Some brief internet research indicated that I should probably avoid the Mystery, but the town where it was located seemed like a winner. I booked a more reputable hostel in Interlaken and was primed for my Swiss adventure. But that’s not exactly what I got.

I’d seen the word “tourist” crop up a few times while reading about Interlaken, which didn’t put me off. After all, shouldn’t a traveler stay in a place with amenities geared towards the traveling lifestyle? What I didn’t realize was that the word “tourist,” in this instance, was not so much meant to imply “traveler friendly,” but rather “This town has a Hooters.” I’m not kidding. I was looking for a weekend in a friendly Swiss backpacking village and instead I got girls in orange hot pants serving spicy chicken wings to lecherous Americans.

Interlaken is weird in many other ways. Across the street from the train station, for example, is a full-bore, Wal-Mart-style department store. It’s got groceries, clothes, electronics–the works. And it’s on the second floor of a mall. To manage the awkward situation of having dozens of customers with full shopping carts who need to get down to the ground floor, the whole center of the mall is taken up by two inclined moving walkways. I can’t explain how odd it was to see a line of European shoppers descending at a slow, shallow angle with their carts in tow–somehow reminiscent of cows to the slaughter–but I wanted desperately to release a full basket from the top of the walkway and watch it careen through the shopping center. It bet it could build up a good head of steam by the time it hit the bottom.

Stranger still were the snippets of the local teenage culture I witnessed around town. I arrived on a Friday evening, too late for a real excursion, so instead I wandered the streets after checking into my superb but empty hostel. I strolled through the heart of Interlaken, a giant public park too overgrown for public use, even in the perfect weather. The teenagers congregated, via bicycle, around the benches surrounding the park, and just kind of hung out there all night. The girls looked, pretty much, like normal teenage girls. The guys, though, were preposterously thugged out. Comically so. Their pants sagged to heroic depths, their hoodies were loose and covered in designer prints, and their hats could only have clung to their heads by way of some incredible static field. They looked, essentially, like back-up dancers from an old Nelly video, except, you know, white and Swiss.

My growing sense of surreality spiked whenever I took the time to notice where I was. I would walk down a street with a McDonald’s and a Casino, then stop, look upwards a few degrees, and remember I was surrounded by towering, beautiful mountains. And I did, the next day, break free of Interlaken’s Americanized grasp by taking a bus for about five minutes into an authentic, The Sound of Music-style village, complete with fluffy white sheep. I hiked up a trail jutting out of a street called Wanderweg, and managed a decent climb by following paths set up by an evidently bankrupt fitness company. After I wore myself out (who knew the Alps would be so steep?), I sat on a rock wall overlooking some abandoned alpine train tracks and dug into my lunch of bread, sausage, and chocolate that I picked up on the cheap from that second-floor department store.

There’s something to be said for tradition. In days that are devoid of chivalry, weddings are a throwback to what ye olde folks call “the good old days.” Family is present. Food is eaten. Elders are respected.

People find the sameness comforting. It explains why the Roman Catholic Church is still in business. Mass is the same every week, and people can rely on it as a constant, if nothing else is. For every person who finds comfort in the tradition, there’s a person who finds it equally discomforting.

The thing is, most weddings absolutely suck. Take it from someone who caters weddings and is about to begrudgingly enter wedding season. Here’s an opportunity to bring your closest friends together and show them a good time on your parents dime, but what do they do? The same old tired routine.

[Fade into…]

Church
Own vows are read, full of how much love is in their hearts, blah blah blah. (Even though this is boring for everybody except the parents, this is probably an essential part to a wedding.)

Reception
People get drinks, mull about, and find their seat (and each table has its own theme! How fun!) until cheese-dick DJ announces the wedding party. A particularly “funky” DJ will play “Let’s Get Ready to Rumble” as they enter.

Everybody eats shitty catered food that costs too much.

First dance
It’s always Nat King Cole’s “Unforgettable.”

Toasts
Champagne is brought out–always Domaine St. Michelle–and ear-splitting reverb indicates the best man is ready to toast the bride and groom. He is not drunk enough, and nobody laughs at his jokes because he’s trying way too hard. The maid of honor is plenty drunk, but her toast is super heartfelt and she talks way too long. Then the father jokes about this costing way too much, except he really secretly means it, so it’s kind of awkward. He tries to save it by saying what a great guy the groom is, and he loves him like a son. We’re all friends again.

Cake
Ha ha! She shoved it in his face! He shoved it in hers! Laugh riot OMGJKLOL!!!!!!

“The Stripper” is played, indicating it’s time for the provocative segment. The single guys don’t want to go up there, so it’s just one guy and a bunch of 12-year-olds. They drop the fucking underwear thingy. The girls go up there to catch the bouquet, and they pretend like they don’t really want it, but then they go fucking nuts trying to catch it. Catfights ensue, but the hot blonde always gets it.

Dancing
The DJ enters. These are the exact songs he plays:

• “Celebration” by Kool & the Gang (interchangeable with We Are Family by Sister Sledge)
• “Love Shack” by the B-52s
• “Yeah! (Remix)” by Usher, Lil’ Jon & Ludacris
• “Brown-Eyed Girl” by Van Morrison
• “Twist” by Chubby Checker
• “Grease Megamix” (seriously, they still play this shit)
• “Billie Jean” by Michael Jackson
• “YMCA” by The Village People
• “Come on Eileen” by Dexy’s Midnight Runners
• “Sexyback” by Justin Timberlake
• “Friends in Low Places” by Garth Brooks
• “Livin’ On A Prayer” by Bon Jovi
• “Baby Got Back” by Sir Mix-A-Lot
• “Hey Ya!” by Outkast
• “What is Love” by Haddaway
• “Push It” by Salt-n-Pepa
• “Last Dance” by Donna Summer

If you still think disco is dead, you haven’t been to a wedding recently. Oh, and white people really like that Usher song.

By the end, people are so drunk, humanity weeps at its own stupidity. The caterers vow to never drink again. Everybody stumbles off to a bar or to a DUI. The groom always leaves his jacket behind, and some old lady always leaves her purse.

[Fade Out. End scene.]

I don’t want to tell you how to run your wedding should that day ever come, I just want to tell you how not to do your wedding. If you’re going to drop $40,000, make it memorable.

Actually, here’s some advice: Always play Prince. It’s impossible not to dance to Prince.

I wanted to see if Kunstler thought that there were any places worth caring about in Tacoma. Tacoma isn’t the prettiest city in anyone’s book. It’s been in Seattle’s shadow as an ugly, industrial port town for some time, although it’s been getting nicer in recent years. The downtown isn’t bad, but the sprawl around it is hideous and run-down. There is a lot of low-income housing around, which tends to attract buildings and construction that aren’t particularly attractive. So I assumed Kunstler would just rip Tacoma a new one.

He did, but he also made some smart observations about America’s cities in general. Kunstler is a proponent of New Urbanism, a school of design that advocates a return to traditional, dense areas of development. Tall, mixed-use buildings are the main idea here: commercial on the first floor with offices or residences on the upper levels. Placing these buildings close together fosters a sense of community and allows people to get around without using a car. The problem with suburbs, after all, is that they’re vast swathes of low density residential communities and nothing else. No one walks on the sidewalks because there are no stores close by—only houses. Suburbs cannot function by themselves; they are useless without cars.

Suburbs also attract hideous big box stores and strip malls. These convenient, square, brick hell holes are the cause of that weird “this store in Seattle looks exactly like the one in Kentucky” feeling that we all get when walking into a Target. Or, in the words of Jane Jacobs, one of the most influential urban planners in America, “City character is blurred until every place becomes more like every other place, all adding up to Noplace.”^[1]

Kunstler talked about these ideas as well, and made sure to repeat to the audience that disgusting suburbs and big box buildings “aren’t good enough.” That struck me, because it seemed so painfully obvious. Of course strip malls are ugly. Doesn’t everyone think so? They aren’t good enough. They aren’t worth caring about. So why do we keep building them?

In Seattle, Pike Place Market is one of the big tourist draws to the region. Going there is usually a disaster because traffic and parking is painful. My favorite thing there is the long line of small international food stores that line the market street. As I walk down the crowded street, I like to stop and stare at the people around holding all sorts of different food. Inevitably, I cave and go buy something to eat. This is a really silly narrative, but the point is that a place like Pike Place Market doesn’t have to exist at that exact location. No one likes the mind-boggling traffic and bank-breaking parking fees. It seems strange that there isn’t anything similar around. How are places like Pike Place Market started? How do you make places worth caring about?

Kunstler made a big deal out of several features a space should have: a building’s look, its mixed use, and accessibility. Though it sounded like an odd key term for middle-management, one of the main ideas was termed “space activation”. A space is activated when there is foot traffic and people entering/exiting. This seems obvious, but apparently is quite difficult to accomplish. To make an example of this point, Kunstler talked about one of the local Tacoma parks. It’s a nice area, with some weird modern art sculpture and benches, but not many people go to it. The reason is because there’s nothing else there. The park is enclosed by a building wall and heavily used streets. It’s not ugly, but it’s awfully inconvenient.

There’s a small chance I’ll go to a park on any given day (I’m lazy), but there’s a greater chance I’ll go to that park if there’s a creperie or coffeehouse right next to it. There’s an even greater chance I’ll stop by if my apartment or office is two stories above that coffeehouse. Activating spaces is about creating traffic and a localized sense of community. If there is an abundance of places in a small area, then people are more likely to travel there because there’s a greater reason to go. Like the rows of international food stores in Pike Place Market, if you don’t want Indian food, there’s a Russian place next door.

In a suburb, there’s no sense of community because there’s nothing else to go to. You take your car ten minutes to the teriyaki joint, but there’s nothing in-between. As opposed to walking on the sidewalk and communicating with others, in a suburb you get in your car and go. Robert Putnam, a political scientist, has tracked this notable decline of social connection in America’s cities in his book Bowling Alone. One of the causes, he notes, has been the car and the isolation that results from a long trip. “The car and commute…are demonstrably bad for community life.”^[2]

I don’t know about anyone else, but my experience living in a suburb was boring and sometimes lonely. I always thought it strange that my parents’ generation was so keen to move away from the city and into the suburbs. I think they’ve been tricked by the lure of a large yard and a big house. But as people my own age get older, I think there will be a shift back to the cities. The thought of using public transportation and walking is appealing in the same way that driving was to my parents. In the future I plan to live in the middle of a city in a cramped apartment. Urban renewal aside, at the very least I’ll get all the crepes I want.

1. Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Modern Library ed. New York: Random House, 1993. Pg. 440.

2. Putnam, Robert. Bowling Alone, 213.

Sadly, I discovered today that there are vultures hovering about, waiting to devour struggling, naive musicians like so much carrion. The following is a cautionary tale.

I checked my MySpace music account (for all you readers who are in the mood for some melancholy folk music) and discovered a message from a man named Ryan. He claimed to represent a booking agent from Big Time Entertainment. He told me he was organizing a show on May 29th, and that my minor-key, nylon-stringed ballads would suit the show. I said I would be interested in playing the gig. My stomach began to do somersaults; I felt as if there was a butterfly ballet troupe doing a rendition of “Rite of Spring” in my intestines. Little ol’ me, playing at a big club in downtown Denver!

However, I quickly realized that the entire situation smelled worse than seafood in Colorado. I checked online to see what other acts were playing that night, and discovered that it was Help the Hood night. Featured on the bill were several hip-hop artists. I’m a big proponent of musical diversity, but I can’t imagine me (skinny white kid with acoustic guitar) on a hip-hop stage. The one hip-hop song in my repertoire–a bossa nova-style cover of R. Kelly’s “Trapped in the Closet”–is more of a humorous novelty than anything.

I realized that I had been scammed when I received a reply from Big Time Entertainment. The following is an imaginary conversation I had with the email, in which I slowly come to terms with the fact that I’ve been had. It turns out that Big Time Entertainment is a company that rents out venues in Washington, Oregon, California, and Colorado to take advantage of local struggling musicians by having them participate in vaguely-shrouded “pay-to-play” nights. All quotes are directly from the email, except for a couple paraphrases.

Jeff: Hello there, email. So far you seem fairly innocuous. But what’s this I see about me being required to recruit an audience of at least 30 people?

Big Time: We need each act to bring in at LEAST the number of people specified below for each Venue [sic]…Acts that fail to bring their share of the crowd have not done their part to make the show a success. This is unfair to the artists who have worked hard to deliver a turnout to the show. Big Time believes that artists should not just play for everyone else’s fans without contributing at all to the turnout. Taking this into account, can you guarantee your band will bring AT LEAST 30 people to come see you play–regardless of the night of the week or other acts on the bill?

Well, I’m not so sure about that. You see, my fan base is limited to those who are obligated to listen to me out of familial and/or friendship ties. But let’s continue for curiosity’s sake. Do I get paid?

Your payment will be proportional to your draw for the night.

Elaborate.

[Paraphrase] Well, you agree to pre-sell tickets to your fans before the show. They are priced at almost twice the going rate for any other weeknight show at this venue, so you’ll have to be a good salesman. Basically, how it works is if you sell 25 tickets, you get $25. And we get $150.

Shouldn’t I get a larger percentage if I do all the legwork to sell the tickets?

[Paraphrase] Well, I suppose you don’t have to sell tickets. Feel free to mooch off other bands’ fans. And just keep in mind that “Consistently, our lowest drawing acts are the ones that choose to not sell tickets and instead just ’hope’ that their fans pay at the door night of show.  Obviously, we are not able to work with these acts anymore, and the clubs we work with also choose to avoid re-booking those acts.”

So, if I personally sell tickets to people, and then I give you $150 of the $175 that I made to you, aren’t I paying to play?

This is NOT “pay to play”; you would not have to pre-purchase the tickets. We would just give them to you to sell.

But if I have to hand over nearly 100% of the money that I made from the tickets that you “gave” me, aren’t you selling me the tickets?

[Paraphrase] Alright, the jig is up. We’re a company that specializes in taking advantage of the peonage (like yourself) of local music scenes. We scour MySpace to find pages of small artists who we know won’t have any representation and then trick them into doing all the ticket-selling for us before handing all the profits.

Big Time Entertainment is one of the more deplorable scams I have come across recently. I say that not only because my pride was hurt, but also because it takes a special kind of greed to take advantage of struggling musicians and closing other avenues of success to them. Hopefully, some poor sap trying to start to make money playing music will google Big Time Entertainment, see this article (or one of the many others), and refrain from handing hard-earned money over to these swindlers.

My stock answer is “I don’t know,” but the person who asks this sort of question usually has her mind made up. If the person is opposed to having children, she’ll whine for the next ten minutes about how terrible the world is or how annoying children are, and then try to convince me not to raise any. But if the person is determined to have children, she’ll tell me about how cute kids are, how rewarding raising some would be, and act like I’m a cold bitch for not being set on having a dozen.

This question isn’t even applicable to my life at the moment. Currently, I’m a twenty-year-old full-time student who is still dependent on my parents. My career goals are ill-defined, let alone any life plans. There are a number of things that would have to transpire for me to be ready to choose whether I would like to have children or not, and yet this question is given the same weight as if I had just been asked if I think I’ll want dinner later.

For me to have children intentionally, I would hope to have a semi-permanent place to live, a job, and independence from my parents’ funds. Oh yeah, and I would also need a man.

All of this thinking ahead may be too much for some individuals to ponder, but I’m willing to wait a while before proclaiming my desire to have children or not. As for children themselves–ones that belong to other people–I don’t have a particular feeling either way. I mean, kids are funny and very cute once they get passed their squishy, alienesque phase, but I don’t go insane over every adorable baby I see.

For some reason, there are mad baby-loving women who have maternal instincts that go in overdrive each time they see a cute kid. Sure, I can appreciate the joy a child brings just as much as the next person, but you won’t see me maniacally snatching every baby I lay my eyes on or scrunching my face and gushing garbled phrases. Just smile and wave for god sakes. You look like an idiot.

I’ve also considered how my hypothetical children would be raised. From an outside perspective, one of the biggest issues parents have with children is discipline. I wouldn’t want to be one of those strict, inhibiting parents, but then again, I wouldn’t want to raise the type of child I encountered in the grocery store the other day who was running around and crashing her cart into people. Being nine or ten years old, she looked perfectly capable of steering her cart around shoppers, but she was quite content to bang her way through the canned goods aisle while her mother looked on. I was tempted to send a can of peas in her direction, but realized retaliation would not be the best solution.

That brings me to another question: physical discipline. By the age of three, I thought I was an adult and made decisions that often threatened my life and went against the wishes of my parents.

“Hold hands to cross the street? No, thank you. I think I’ll handle this intersection by myself.”

As a result, I received my fair share of swats during my formative years, but I always knew why I was spanked and that I deserved it, and I did not grow up to be a grocery store tyrant who abused the use of my cart. Also, this method of discipline was changed once I was old enough to comprehend shame and disappointment as punishment enough in themselves.

I do not necessarily promote spanking. After all, you’re hitting a small and defenseless person and that sounds a lot like abuse. However, I’m not really sure what else you’re supposed to do with a small child who repeats the same behavior no matter how much you try to reason with her. I think I’m starting to understand the “joys” of parenting.

Still, I have no job, no money of my own, and no idea when having children will be agreeable, let alone knowing how to raise them. I figure the last two things tend to work themselves out, but for now I will hold off on the question of children entirely and save it for a later date. As for the crazy-for-baby ladies, you need to tone it down a notch.

Fellow Bureau writer Caitlin Boersma is one of the alternative music directors at Tacoma’s 90.1 FM The Sound. She keeps detailed, collaborative spreadsheets on Google Docs that track the CDs she and the other music directors have received and reviewed.

Google Docs is well-designed. The word processor has all of the basic features you’d expect in Word and allows you to save in a number of formats. I’ve only spent considerable time with the online word processor, but Google also offers knockoffs of Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint as well. Admittedly, the online word processor is still a far cry from the power of regular software, but for me, the greater lesson is how effective internet-based services can be when it comes to organizing my life. Considering this generation’s affinity for anything web-based, it may be the way we all organize our lives in the future.

Google instills a lot of goodwill in people. Their corporate image is playful (Google’s motto is “don’t be evil”), but most importantly, Google offers a handful of excellent free services. When Gmail made its debut on April 1, 2004, users thought the unprecedented one gigabyte of storage was an April Fool’s joke. It made a mockery of Hotmail, which at the time allotted an unimpressive two megabytes–more than 500 times less.

It’s also hard to deny how well Google has integrated all of their services. From your Gmail account, you can share your documents, calendars, RSS feeds, and photos. Oh yeah, and it’s also a pretty good search engine.

Still, Google isn’t the only player in the future of internet organization.

When Nick and I first launched The Bygone Bureau last summer, we managed everything through email. It was a messy system, so we tested out 37signals’s online project management tool Basecamp, which, since then, has been indispensable to running the site. Our plan costs $12 per month–obviously pricier than Google’s free services–but it’s never a bill we mind paying. We’ve been able to tailor Basecamp to our needs thanks to its simple, versatile design. Even our less technologically talented writers (see: Jeff Merrion) adore how easy it is to upload drafts and edits. Basecamp will even send a reminder for an article due date, which comes in particularly handy for our less deadline-conscious writers (see: Jeff Merrion).

I suppose the Bureau could operate solely through the sharing features of Google Documents, but it wouldn’t be nearly as efficient. Google Docs capabilities are too broad and lack the organizational structure of Basecamp, thanks to its sharp emphasis on making collaboration as intuitive as possible. As our schedules and work become online versions that can be accessed from anywhere in the world, we can look forward to the development of more services like Basecamp to create a future that is efficient and social.

Caitlin

This mix tape is all about the best things in life: love, drugs, and sex. A couple of songs, such as “Take Ecstasy with Me,” discuss all three topics. While The Bygone Bureau does not officially promote or discourage any of these activities, it’s hard not to feel pressure from Antony Hegarty (who sings a version of Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day”) to fall in love, refuse Jeff Tweedy a drug binge, or resist an invitation for sex from Beck.

Jordan

This mix tape, aptly titled “Chocolate Barf Fairies” (Volume Seven, of course) is an extension of my conflicting moods. That is, this mix tape attempts to contrast songs that are identifiably barfy and loud against songs that are much more fairy-esque. Get it? Well it doesn’t matter: if Autechre’s “paralel Suns” [sp] doesn’t emit a vomit-like feeling from your gut, I’m not sure what does. Some songs, like Goldfrapp’s fantastic new song “Eat Yourself,” are a strange combination of the two feelings. The mix tape reels from one spectrum of quiet, serene speculation to crass noise-excrement fairly quickly, so please feel free to press pause when you get a little queasy.

Drew

Sometimes I listen to a song and say, “All this is missing is a great video.” Mark Romanek is a maker of beautiful music videos. He’s never subtle, but that’s what sets him apart. Blatant religious icons (Nine Inch Nail’s “Closer”) and overly dramatic sets (Lenny Kravitz’s “Are You Gonna Go My Way”) are perfect in music videos. Artists are allowed to stare in the camera in a video, and I think they should. Fuck faux concert footage.

The following is a mix of songs that could use big sweeping camera shots, an overwrought premise, and a $15 million dollar budget.

And One Hour Photo sucked, Mark. Sorry.

Kevin

When I put together a mix tape, I think of it as musical accompaniment to something specific I’m doing or will do. For example, I have a mix for running, doing homework, cooking, and, of course, driving. My pretentiously titled “Magnifique Pacifique” mix is what I want to listen to when I’m in a submarine, which is something I plan to do after getting my degree in marine biology (a.k.a. renting The Life Aquatic). I can’t imagine a more fitting soundtrack to deep sea exploration than low-key indie pop and electronica.

Nick

The most important thing about this mix, like any mix, is that it begins with LCD Soundsystem’s “Tribulations.” Please feel free to use this rule to evaluate the entries from the other Bureau writers. You’ll also note that I’ve taken the unconventional strategy of placing a nine-minute song in the prime third slot. It’s a risky move that has sunk many mixes, but I’m confident about its execution here because it’s impossible to listen to “Swans” too many times. Believe me. Finally, I have included one leaked song, the Silver Jews’ “Suffering Jukebox,” which makes my mix even more illegal than the already blatantly-criminal nature of this entire Muxtape endeavor. This extra delinquency, I think, gives my mix the X-factor it needs to go deep in the playoffs.

I don’t mean to select these people because of anything they’ve done, or even their literary value (I’ve never read either). The point being made is that these people were known only briefly in the popular news and have since vanished, which is apparently still enough to write a book. As exasperating as it may sound, we are publishing too many books because it’s become very easy to publish. Thus, with a lower benchmark for publishing comes a lower standard of quality. We are in a book market where supply has flooded bookstores with an overwhelming number of choices.

In many ways, the overwhelming increase in book selection has led to some positive effects. Books that are extremely topic-specific can be published, because the revenue generated from a single book tends to be so low (as there are a million other books to choose from). So yes, your book on the Northern Mongolian Green Pea is available at Borders. Publishers can also take a little more risk in publishing no-names, especially when it comes to nonfiction. So yes, your dream of achieving literary success by blindly submitting your first novel to a huge publishing house is possible.

We can also make the argument that the more books we publish, the more likely we’ll publish really good ones that otherwise would never see the light of day or publish ones that turn out to be astonishingly popular (A Million Little Pieces, perhaps). So aren’t we better off with a huge number of published books?

Maybe. But I feel like we’re losing something here. The main problem is that there are an astonishing number of terrible books that are published all the time. This might be more apparent when looking at movies or television. I know it’s difficult to despise a book you’ve bought and spent time on, but I must admit that I’ve made some awful book purchases in the last couple years. Especially when blind purchasing in a bookstore (as in, without reading reviews), I often find myself stuck with something mediocre. It’s probably the pretty cover that gets me or the thousand words of praise that cover the back like chickenpox. (I’m fairly certain that every book has been praised as “inspirational.”) There are some books that I’d never care to read (sorry Tenet), but some just trick me into buying them.

If there were fewer books, the publishing industry would be more selective. If they were more selective, then (ideally) they would pick out the weeds and only publish the flowers. Another extension of this idea, I think, is that we would see fewer books that provide solely instant gratification. Think Natalee Holloway. Her story is more relevant to a visual medium than a book. I mean, books last forever; how long do we remember seeing Natalee on CNN? Who pulls out their book on Laura Bush ten years after they read it? Publishers would be more inclined to offer choices that last forever; that are capable of several print runs. In short, books would be more book-y.

There are problems with this idea, of course. The first is how publishers would be encouraged to publish fewer books. Let’s imagine that there was some arbitrary limit imposed by law: Publishers would only be allowed to print a certain number of books a year. Let’s ignore distressing details like how different sized publishing houses would cope or anything else particular.

What are the effects of such a limit? It might sound like a dictatorial cultural system: Our culture is preselected for consumption. But of course, this happens already, especially because books require private businesses. In addition, we have informal selection processes that filter out potential books we could read. We read book reviews from reviewers who only read particular books. Some bookstores only stock particular books. Even now the books we have bought were filtered and selected before we even saw them at the bookstore. We always do our best to wade through the unwanted books to find the true treasures, whether we realize it or not.

Other problems arise. Wouldn’t a limited selection force unpopular books like poetry or esoteric topical books to be eliminated? Or that first time writers would be passed over in favor of established names? Probably, but there would still be a demand for all of those, just a smaller selection. It’s true that it would limit selection from what would normally be available. But imagine every poetry anthology: Have you read all of them? So whatever you’re potentially missing, you probably won’t read anyway. The truth is that people don’t read much, so having fewer books won’t result in a selection problem. There will still be plenty of things you won’t have time to read.

This brings about a point I’ve discussed in another article. If we limited the number of books published, then more people will read the same thing. There would be a community of readers who would relate to each other. A sense of connection and communication would emerge that readers lost long ago when it became impossible to keep up with every book. There might be a narrower selection of books, but at least people could have a conversation about them. Books might actually become more popular and more valued because there are fewer of them.