by Brad Warner
Hello SuicideGirls! It’s been a while! But I’m back. As some of you may recall, I used to do a regular “Hardcore Zen” blog here at SG on all manner of topics relating to Zen. I’m a Zen Buddhist monk and I just published my forth book, Sex, Sin and Zen.
By Edward Kelly
Consider it Conversation Starting 101. To get a group’s attention you need to know three things: what does everyone like, what do some members of the group like, what do some members of the group dislike. And then make some wild claim as though it were fact. For example: You see a bunch of 20-year-old dudes sitting around a coffee shop table. They are all wearing hoodies, jeans and sneakers. Most of them sport facial hair or at least attempts (deliberate or otherwise) at facial hair. It’s safe to assume that these guys have opinions about Star Wars.
I mean, maybe they aren’t hardcore nerds, but even if they say “it sucks” or “the prequels suck” or “Empire is better than Jedi” then you know that they’ll have a conversation for at least ten minutes. It’s just a fact – a fact because Star Wars is a cultural touchstone. Ten minute debate, easy. If you really want to stir the pot, then you pull Conversation Starting 102 and say, “Y’know, when you think about it… Hayden Christensen was the perfect choice to play young Anakin.” Suddenly ten minutes become an hour.
by Jay Hathaway
“Maybe the mustache will ultimately prove a useful analog for the music.”
– Chris Cain, bassist
We Are Scientists are known for making straightforward pop-rock, but they’re not known for giving straightforward answers in interviews. I didn’t want to be the millionth person to ask “Are you really scientists?,” so I set out to find the answer on my own. After reading through several conflicting accounts of the band’s various areas of scientific expertise, I finally found the answer. A piece from the college magazine at Pomona, the California school where the band originally formed, revealed that guitarist Keith Murray and bassist Chris Cain weren’t actually science majors of any sort. Well played, guys.
Needless to say, We Are Scientists like to keep people guessing. They first broke out in the UK with 2005’s formidable collection of indie-pop, With Love and Squalor. The 2008 follow-up, a less upbeat but more lyrically complex record called Brain Thrust Mastery, also climbed the British charts. A predictable band would stick with a major label and put out another album following the same formula. This is no predictable band.
Get to know Taye better over at SuicideGirls.com!
by Suri Suicide
Artist / SG Member Name: Monroe a.k.a Candy Warhol
Mission: “Saving the world one glittery titty at a time.”
by Brett Warner
“When the music changes, so does the dance.”
– African proverb
In a recent interview with Pitchfork, former Nine Inch Nailer Trent Reznor promoted his score to the Columbia Pictures financed, fifty million dollar film The Social Network with a typical amount of brutal honesty:
