It’s time for episode two of Hold On To Your Butts. This time, we chat about the Cleveland Kidnapping hero, Charles Ramsey. We also explore celebrity twitter breakdowns. Finally, we discuss some of your feedback from last episode. Thanks for listening! And, as always, please email us with feedback! (CAUTION: there are some swears in this.)

Subscribe to our podcast using THIS FEED or SUBSCRIBE THROUGH ITUNES!

Relevant links (some are NSFW):

• Charles Ramsey
• Charles Ramsey Auto-tuned
• The Gregory Brothers
• Antoine Dodson
• Kai the Hitchhiker
• Backin’ Up
• Amanda Bynes on Twitter
• State of Decay
• @notpolice
• Our Theme Music: “The Adventure Lights,” by Skip Cloud
• Also featuring “Friend of Mine” by the French Girls and “Did I Miss Something Right Now?” by Roads.

LISTEN BELOW:

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Well, here it is! It’s the first episode of the Enchantment Under the Sea podcast, “Hold On To Your Butts.” We’re trying this whole thing out, and this was actually only a test episode, so things will probably change dramatically between this episode and our next one. Stay tuned! And, feel free to email us with any feedback. (CAUTION: there are some swears in this.)

(NOTE: You can subscribe to our podcast using this feed, but we’ll hopefully have an iTunes page for the podcast soon or SUBSCRIBE THROUGH ITUNES!)

Relevant links (most of which are sweary and, as a result, NSFW):

• Sorority email
• Newscaster swears on air
• Reddit hunts for Boston Bomber
• “I would like to extend you a counter-offer…”
• Tilda Swinton / Ebert Dance Party
• Our Theme Music: “The Adventure Lights,” by Skip Cloud

LISTEN BELOW:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

By way of setting the scene, I should probably mention the turkey burgers. I was out to dinner at a local place called Barleys with my friends Al and Colleen. When we ordered dinner, by some miracle of taste convergence (or maybe just social psychology), we each independently decided to order the turkey burger. The three of us did share a lot of common tastes, so, as often happens when we get together, each of us was talking about the music we’d been listening to recently. I predictably started blathering about the new Superchunk record,¹ which I had become obsessed with in the preceding weeks. But during that conversation, Al said something that turned out to be as important as it was surprising. He told me he’d been listening to the new Kesha album. Read More »

I hate to start my review of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, a pretty cool movie, on a really down note, but I have to ask: what was the point of this movie?

One answer might be that it’s supposed to just be a fun action story. Another might be that it’s necessary set-up for the bigger events unfolding in later films. Either way, the film doesn’t quite get there, instead being too big to be pure fun, and too pointless to be epic. Read More »

I’ve always been a fan of traditional Indian music. I used to search Limewire for long live recordings of ragas and tabla solos. The best recordings combined severe technical proficiency with a fun, improvisational feeling. The rhythms and melodies were complex, but there was something very satisfying and whole about the compositions, no matter how fractured they could appear if you thought too much about what time signature they were using.

Recently, that interest led me to a new style of music. I’ve been exploring the golden age of Bollywood cinema, the music produced for Indian popular cinema in the 50s and 60s. Read More »

Welcome back to the not-entirely-irregular feature that I’m calling “Unexpected Pleasures.” It’s about trying things that I might otherwise dismiss to discover the joys hidden inside. Send suggestions to staff@enchantmentunderthesea.org.

The Footloose remake that just came out last week opens in the only way it ever could: a pretty slavish, but clean and stylish, recreation of the titles of the original, which was a series of close-ups of dancing feet. This opening certainly prepares us for what is to come, as it’s not the only slavish recreation we’re going to see (those of you that were into the original will see familiar angry-warehouse-dancing, confetti-storms, and even a rusty yellow VW Bug).

But then, maybe if this remake was a little MORE slavishly dedicated to shot-for-shot re-creation, it’s pleasures might be easier to discover. Read More »

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is the tale of an ape, given the gift of hyper-intelligence, at the tipping point between evolving and maintaining his animal nature, caught between something bold and new and something simple. It’s oddly apt that the film itself also teeters between bold and simple. It’s got the simple appeal of a nostalgia-fueled action film, but it’s also reaching for something more complex and lasting. Let’s see where it comes out…

Read More »

Bitches, boasting, Benzes, bullets: one of the biggest quandaries facing white, hipster hip-hop fans is rappers’ propensity to talk about themselves, their guns, their money, and their cars, all whilst talking shit about other rappers, talking shit about women, and just plain shit talking. It can be tiring for this humble, white listener, who considers himself something of a feminist. But I think I, and, by extension, my white hipster brethren, give Jay-Z a pass because of the “authenticity” thing.

The major challenge facing the collaboration that makes up Watch the Throne is that I extend no such courtesy to Kanye West.

Read More »

Buried deep in the back of the opening track of Bon Iver’s recent self-titled album is the click of drumsticks. In front is a guitar line that, by itself, is haunting and beautiful enough. But buried deep behind the beautiful things on the surface are the things like those clicking drumsticks, the things that creep up slowly, the things that fill in the space around the more obvious (more easy) beauty.

Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago was a careful study in intimacy and the smallness of the sonic space there, but that kind of intimacy is an easy sell. This record is all about what happens to that intimacy when the walls are pushed back to let in… well, everything.

Read More »

Remember that classic scene in E.T. where the government agents violently interrogate and then kill Elliot’s school teacher? Or remember that scene in The Goonies where Chunk’s dad and Mikey’s dad expose their history of mutual hatred? How about that scene in Close Encounters where the aliens eat human flesh?

Yeah. Neither do I. But apparently J.J. Abrams does.  Read More »