Out of the Archives

and into the streets

Friday, August 12, 2005

Learning to Whistle in Four Easy Steps

The kind (and amusingly snarky) folks at Tiny Mixed Tapes have provided a step by step guide on how to whistle for all of you out there who haven't quite figured it out on your own (freaks). This, they assure me, will not only ensure that you won't miss the Iron&Wine/Calexico show, but will also prevent your best friend from screwing your significant other and ward off tennis ball-sized kidney stones. All in all, a handy skill to have. So, from TMT to you, via me, How to Whistle:

1. Tuck away your lips
First, your upper and lower lips must reach over to cover your teeth and be tucked into your mouth. Only the outer edges of your lips are visible, if at all.

2. Choose your finger combination
The role of fingers is to keep the lips in place over the teeth. Experiment with different thumb and index/middle-finger combinations to discover which works best for you, depending on the size of your fingers and mouth. Regardless of your choice of fingers, their placement is the same: each are placed roughly halfway between the corners and center of lips, inserted to the first knuckle. (Again, this will vary depending on the size of your fingers and mouth.)

Now that your fingers are in place, be very clear on these two matters of form:

a) Your fingernails should be angled inwards, towards the center of the tongue, and not pointed straight in and towards the back of your mouth; and b) your fingers should pull the lower lip fairly taut.

3. Draw back the tongue
Now comes the crucial part of the whistle. The tongue must be drawn back so that its front tip almost touches the bottom of the mouth a short distance behind the lower gums (about 1/2 inch/1 cm). This action also broadens and flattens the front edge of the tongue, allowing it to cover a wider portion of the lower back teeth.

The sound is produced by air flowing over a bevel, or a sharply angled edge. In this case, the sound is created by the upper teeth and tongue directing air onto the lower lip and teeth.

4. Blow
Inhale deeply, and exhale over the top side of the tongue and lower lip, and out of your mouth. Some extra downward and outward pressure by the fingers onto the lips and teeth may be helpful. Experiment with the position of the fingers, the draw of the tongue, the angle of the jaw, and the strength of your exhalation. Adjusting with these will bring success.

Start off with a fairly gentle blow. You'll produce a whistle of lower volume at first, but you'll also have more breath to practice with if you don't spend it all in the first three seconds. As you blow, adjust your fingers, tongue and jaws to find the bevel's sweet spot. This is the area of maximum efficiency, where the air is blown directly over the sharpest part of the bevel. Once you locate the sweet spot, your whistle will have a strong, clear tone, as opposed to a breathy, low-volume sound.

Listen for these sounds: as you practice, your mouth will learn to focus the air onto the bevel's sweet spot with increasing accuracy. You'll probably hear the following: a breathy, low-volume tone that suddenly, as you adjust your fingers, mouth, or jaw, will switch to a clear, full, high-volume tone. Success! You're on the right track--your task now is to reproduce the mouth and hand position that led to the better whistle.

rgsc

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Booker Longlist Announced

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction longlist was announced yesterday. The prize, set up in 1969, celebrates the best fiction, written in English, from the Commonwealth - ie pretty much anyone who writes in English but it not American. The list consists of 17 books, whittled down from 109, and will be further reduced to the shortlist of 6 on September 8th. The winner, who will receive 50,000 pounds, will be announced October 10th.

This year's list is quite strong featuring 4 previous winners (Ian, McEwan, Kazuo Ishiguro, JM Coetzee, and Salman Rushdie - Coetzee is the only person to have won twice and Rushdie won the "Booker of the Bookers" for the best of all novels that have won), some well known names, and a few more obscure authors. A conspicuous absence among the 17 are Canadians: there isn't a Canuck on the longlist, which I think is now two years in a row.

Currently the favourites are McEwan for "Saturday" and Ishiguro for "Never Let Me Go", but don't count out the others as the Booker often picks the wildcard or oddball of the group. Of all the books on the list, I am most interested in Zadie Smith's "On Beauty" (not released in Canada until September). I really enjoyed her first two novels - "White Teeth" and "The Autograph Man" - so I am looking forward to this one which, by its longlist endorsement, should meet the high standards of her previous work.

For brief descriptions of the 17 books and details about the prize and what the bookies are saying, see The Guardian.
rgsc

Monday, August 08, 2005

Dancing, Drugs and Deafness - 'It's All Gone Pete Tong'

This weekend I was finally able to see the mock-rock-doc It's All Gone Pete Tong about the hottest DJ in Ibiza who tragically goes deaf.

We see DJ Frankie Wilde at his prime - as a god among the sun and intoxicant drenched denizens of the island, ruling the clubs, giving television interviews, gracing the cover of magazines, his albums going platinum, with all the women, scotch, and coke he could ever want. However, he starts to notice something is wrong. It begins with a buzzing. He then can barely hear anything at all. Following an absolutely awful set, he finally admits there is a problem. By this he is left with only 20% hearing in one ear, which he promptly loses. He then loses his wife, his record deal, and his marbles. After an aborted spectacular attempt to commit suicide (involving a whack of fireworks strapped to his head) following a long period of isolation, Frankie emerges where he battles his demons - the fantastic Coke Badger: a snarling, 6ft tall badger in a fairy costume complete with star-tipped wand who shovels cocaine into Frankie's face and kicks his ass when he dares suggest that their relationship should become more "casual" - the Badger is probably the best bit of the whole film.

(sorry about the pic - it was the best I could find)


He picks himself up, learns how to function in a silent world, falls in love, figures out how to mix without his hearing, and has one last spectacular set before disappearing into obscurity.

This is a highly enjoyable, even touching, film. You can't help but feel for Frankie, even though he in no way, shape or form fits the sympathetic hero role, as he struggles with the realization and implications of his deafness. With small shaky steps he overcomes whatever life throws at him, first by binging on whatever he can get his hands on, then through hard work and perseverance.

The acting is superb, the faux-documentary form (complete with talking heads) is well balanced with scenes shot in a more traditional movie-making way as you would find in a biopic, and it is visually stunning - showing the beauty of Ibiza, the energy of the clublife, and what can perhaps only be called the grotesqueness of the results of Frankie's addictions. Equally funny and dramatic this is a fantastic film

Thursday, August 04, 2005

Metric - Live and Near You!

Sweet Merciful Crap! Metric just announced that their new album, entitled "Live it Out" will be released Sept. 27 in Canada and that they will be touring extensively. Seriously, these guys don't screw around - they are hitting 43 cities in Canada and the US in three months. They are everywhere you want to be, including our beloved Kingston on Sept. 26 (at Stages, ack), as well as Toronto, Cleveland, Houston, Montreal, Vancouver, Winnipeg. If you live in a place that has running water and electric lighting chances are Metric will be there. Check out Pitchfork Media for the full list of dates (they have not been added to Metric's site yet) for a full list. They will be accompanied by some pretty stellar opening bands and you will be doubly blessed if your show includes The Organ or The Most Serene Republic, although I am sure all the opening acts will be great. Details about who's where will be coming soon, no doubt.