THE MAKESHIFT MEDICS OF THE KIEV UPRISING
NOOTROPICS: THE SMAR T DRUG, HELPING OR HUR TING
33
ANOREXIA IN THE FASHION INDU STRY
43
EN
ES
S
|D IS SE NT
|
ID
EN
TIT
Y
BLINDEYE
AW AR
21
BLINDEYE WAS BORN OUT AUTHENTIC INFORMATIO DUE TO BIASED NEWS FR OR LIBERAL MEDIA OUTL PROPAGANDA NAVIGATES OF GLOBAL CULTURE AN IGNORANCE. AN OBJECTI THE NEWS GENERATES T AND THE SOONER WE UN ANOTHER, THE BETTER. FOR TESTIMONIES, ANAL RAISE AWARENESS OF SO EXHIBIT CULTURE FROM
T OF NECESSITY. ON IS NEARLY EXTINCT ROM CONSERVATIVE LETS. THIS POLITICAL S AWAY FROM THE PULSE ND MORE TOWARDS SOCIAL IVE REPRESENTATION OF TRUE UNDERSTANDING, NDERSTAND ONE WE SEARCH THE WORLD LYZE DOMESTIC TENSIONS, OCIAL ISSUES, AND M AROUND THE GLOBE.
AWARENESS THE STATE OR CONDITION
OF BEING AWARE; HAVING KNOWLEDGE; CONSCIOUSNESS
DISSENT
TO DIFFER IN SENTIMENT OR OPINION, ESPECIALLY FROM THE MAJORITY; WITHHOLD ASSENT.
IDENTITY
BEING ONESELF OR ITSELF, AND NOT ANOTHER; CONDITION OR
CHARACATER AS TO WHO A PERSON OR WHAT A THING IS.
DEPARTMENTS 9 15 63 67
FOOD & DRINK: 6 BEST U.S. BREWERIES TECHNOLOGY: BEST OF CES14 INTERNET: WOMEN WHO RUN THE SHOW MUSIC: TOP ALBUMS OF THE WEEK
FEATURES 21 33 43 53
MAKESHIFT MEDICS BRAIN GAME STARVING FOR FASHION MASHROU LEILA
CONTRIB UTORS MITCH FRIEDEMAN Life is one big road with lots of signs.
JOSIE MILLER I love grape juice.
JON HETER I, also, love grape juice.
LYNNASHA GALBREATH Scientists recently discovered that bitches, do in fact, be trippin’.
FOOD & DRINK
6
BEST NEW U.S.
BREWERIES We thought it was good for you to know is that there are these outrageously good new breweries popping up around the country, specializing in excellent beers, stouts and ales. Here at Blindeye we decided to go to a bunch of different new breweries across the country, learn a little about them, and drink some beer. Here are our 6 favorite new U.S. breweries.
04 TRILLIUM BREWING Boston, Massachusetts Located in Boston’s up-and-coming Fort Point hood, Trillium is one of only a handful of production breweries in the city (two of the others, whose names you
06
might recognize, are Harpoon and Samuel Adams). Trillium offers four signature beers: Wakerobin, a farmhouse rye red ale; Pot&Kettle, an oatmeal stout; Fort Point Pale Ale; and the brewery’s signature Trillium, a barley and wheat farmhouse ale. There’s also
MOODY TONGUE
a list of rotating seasonal beers, like their first bottled
Chicago, Illinois
a two-bottle max limit.
Brewmaster Jared Rouben is a former cook (he worked at Martini House in Napa and expedited at Per Se in New York); he describes his beer-making philosophy as “culinary brewing.” Rouben uses innovative techniques to make Moody Tongue’s beers with ingredients like chocolate, rhubarb and, more unconventionally, peas, dehydrated blueberries and tea. The taproom is set to open in May; meanwhile, Rouben, a former Goose Island brewer, is offering
brew, the barrel-aged Pot&Kettle porter, offered with
@Trilliumbrewing
03
WICKED WEED
beer-making classes.
Asheville, North Carolina
@MoodyTongue
Asheville has been called the current craft beer capital of the country. One good reason to make
05
ECLIPTIC BREWING Portland, Oregon
that claim is the brewpub Wicked Weed. WW has a long list of beers on tap: their American and Belgian selections include Freak of Nature DIPA (double IPA), Gluten FREEk and What’s She’s Having (a rye pale ale for those who just can’t choose from the long menu).The specialty, though, is wild beers, and selections from the Wicked Wood aged beers include Oblivion, which is described as “deliberately sour,” made with 88 pounds of blackberries and 20
Named for the Earth’s orbit around the sun, Ecliptic
pounds of dried dates and aged for eight months in
was launched by one of Portland’s most well-known
Cabernet wine barrels.
brewers, John Harris. All of the beers are named
@wickedweedbeer
BRIEF HISTORY OF BEER Beer has been brewed for over ten thousand years; for at least as long as humans have called themselves civilized. (It is interesting to note that one of the greatest advances of civilization was also one of the first.) Some anthropologists theorize that the production of beer gave rise to civilization in the 1st place. Sound strange? Here’s how the theory goes: Early on, humans were nomadic hunter-gatherers, who were able to scratch out a comfortable enough living by digging up what they could find growing wild, or chasing down what they could kill. At some point, a fermented beverage was discovered, most likely by accident when some bread or grain got wet and was allowed to sit around in a vessel and spoil. The early brewers drank this strange “spoiled bread water” and liked how it made them feel. They were able to repeat the process, but in order to have a steady supply of grain, they had to stop their nomadic ways and stay in one place and plant and harvest it. Thus arose the first permanent agricultural settlements and the beginnings of human civilization. Though brewing techniques and equipment have improved over the ages, beer still is essentially a sugary extract derived from malted barley, seasoned with hop flowers, and fermented by yeast. The brewer’s art consists of taking four basic ingredients – water, malted barley, yeast and hops – and combining them to create the amazingly wide variety of beer styles available today.
after stars, constellations or something astronomyrelated, like the White Astroid Imperial Wit IPA and the Mintaka Stout. (Besides detailing the flavors, ABV and so on, the tasting notes explain astrological references—Mintaka is the right-most star in Orion’s belt, and is 90,000 times more luminous than the sun. Now you know.) Ecliptic also serves food, some of it made with their beer, like HefePils-spiked steamed mussels.
@EclipticBrewing
02
TENNESSEE BREW WORKS Nashville, Tennessee At this two-story brewery and taproom, owners Christian Spears and Garr Schwartz serve seasonally changing beers that spotlight local produce. Their
THE BEER MAN This is Tom. He loves beer. Like really loves beer. So we sent him all over the country to find the best new breweries. We made sure he brough back plenty of extra brew so everyone could try some.
headliner brews include Basil Ryeman (a saison/ farmhouse ale brewed with rye and basil) and Country Roots (a sweet potato stout, made by mashing the baked potatoes right into the grains). This being Nashville, they have live music every Thursday through Sunday.
@TNBrewWorks
TECHNOLOGY
NEW
AGAVE WHEAT BREKENRIDGE BREWERY PRESENTS
A LIGHT, REFRESHING, YET INTERESTING AMERICAN UNFILTERED WHEAT ALE WITH AGAVE
Agave complements the refreshingly light quality of our wheat and adds a subtle note of flavor that expands this beer’s uplifting taste profile. It is familiar yet creative.
Back in the 1980s, our founder Richard Squire was your typical ski bum – with one significant difference. He had a knack for making extraordinary home brews. For years, only his closest friends were able to enjoy his creations, but it didn’t take long for Richard to realize that his talents needed to be shared with the world.
FOOD & DRINK
1
DANGEROUS MAN Minneapolis, Minnesota Set in an old bank in Northeast Minneapolis, Dangerous Man Brewing Co. has a taproom made partially from reclaimed wood and decorated with works by local artists. Highlights of Dangerous Man’s small-batch beers include Chocolate Milk Stout, Smoked Porter and Triple IPA (hops, hops, hops!). If you’re drinking at Dangerous Man, you can bring in food from nearby restaurants to complement your brew; if you’re on the move, you can buy the beers by the growler.
@dangerousman7
ROB AND SARAH, THE FOUNDERS OF DANGEROUS MAN, AS WELL AS EXTENSIVE FAMILY, FRIENDS, AND VOLUNTEERS BUILT ALL OF THE TAPROOM AND BREWERY THEMSELVES.
What is the vibe like when you walk into Dangerous Man? During the week you are likely to find an array of neighborhood folk enjoying pints and good conversation. It is warm and welcoming, with awesome staff to answer your beer questions.Weekends are a different beast. It is not unusual to find a line outside the door with a packed house inside. Music is bumping, beers are slanging and happy beer loving folks are abound. Music is always playing (everything from Star Wars Cantina song to P.O.S. can be heard), we have wi-fi, many high top tables and a cabinet full of board games. The long communal table might encourage you to chat with your neighbor or you can sit on the pile of grain and enjoy looking at our copper brewhouse.
THE DANGEROUS MAN TAP ROOM The Dangerous Man taproom features an ever-rotating line up of beers. They make an honest attempt to keep a variety of beers on tap; a dark one, a light one, a hoppy one and a strong one. Kinda like all seven dwarves but only six of them. This place is great, come on in, bring food and drink some great local beer made by Minneapolis’s finest.
HOURS
OUR FAVORITE BEER BELGIAN DARK STRONG
IBUS ABV (%) 28 11 FLAVOR NOTES Large notes of figs and stone fruits are present in the nose, with a hint of alcohol. The draw is smooth with spice at the end. Figs, plums, and rye are very prominent flavors that are followed by a slight heat from the alcohol content. The hop bitterness supports the large malt bill by clipping the maltiness of the beer and allowing for a cleaner draw. MALTS USED Pilsner, Caramunich I, Aromatic, Weyermann Special W, Chocolate Rye, HOPS USED Motueka, Pacifica FOOD PAIRINGS Barbecued and jerked meats. Emily’s Lebanese foods featuring raisins, figs, or plums. The Belgian Dark Strong style generally indicates that it is stronger in alcohol content than Tripels and is darker than the typical golden color. It is definitely a sibling with the Belgian Golden Strong, both of which are very similar to their counterparts, the Tripel and the Quadrupel. The alcohol content of Belgian Dark Strongs are generally over 8% and they have large fig, plum, and dried cherry fruit notes. Spicey phenols from the Belgian yeasts compliment the sweeter malt flavors. A slight alcohol warmth should be present, but generally blends into the malt bill.
Tues-Thurs: 4-10pm Friday: 3pm-midnight Saturday: noon-midnight Sun-Mon: closed
TECHNOLOGY
CES 2014 THE FUTURE OF ENGAGEMENT IS INTENTIONAL So, here we are. The show is over. The massive displays are being dismantled, and the BlindEye team is battered and bruised, but not beaten from a long weekend in Sin City. And on a very hungover flight back home, we’ve painstakingly assembled the greatest hits of CES 2014, all for you.
/03
TECHNOLOGY
/06
5 /0
/04
/1 Originally floated as a concept back in 2012, the Android based SOCIALMATIC could revive the beloved Polaroid as we know it. An inkless printing system enables users to print stickers of their sepiatinted images, and customise them using the 4.5 inch touchscreen. Slated for release by the end of 2014, it may be hipster, but it’s also incredibly cool. /2 This external hard drive may not be cheap at $490 for 1TB of memory, but LACIE’S SPHERE sure is beautiful. /3 Capture more than just a picture with the PANONO CAMERA and discover a whole new experience. Send your Panono up into the air. What it brings back down will amaze you. /4 This is Valve’s second consecutive year attending CES, and the company behind Steam made another big splash in 2014. Pricing, specs and rough launch windows were given to the various STEAM MACHINES, which brings us all one step closer to the much-ballyhooed Steambox reality we’ve been hearing about for years now.
/ O / 12
/5 A sea of activity-tracking wearables, the JAYBIRD REIGN stood out not only for its attractive design, but also its innovative software. Android and iOS apps log your movements and display related stats, like calories burned and activity duration, then offer up suggestions based on your physical history. /6 While we’ve had a love affair with 3D printers for some time, consumer models haven’t quite reached the level of polish and sophistication that we expect from most of our gadgets. With MAKERBOT’S THIRD REPLICATOR, however, it’s clear that things have changed.
WHAT’S PRINTING FOR DINNER?
2
/O
The most exciting appliance we saw on the CES floor, however, might just kickstart an entirely new category of products. 3D Systems’ ChefJet and ChefJet Pro are billed as the “world’s first and only professional-certified, kitchen-ready 3D food printers;” the products have been developed following 3D Systems’ September acquisition of Sugar Labs, a husband-andwife team comprised of Kyle and Liz von Hasseln. The ChefJet, which will retail for under $5,000, is capable of printing candy and chocolate in a single color and flavor, and the much larger ChefJet Pro lets you print in full color for a price under $10,000. Both printers are planned for release in the second half of this year.
Severely beaten and many of them close to death, scores of injured lay across Kiev’s Mariinsky park as temperatures hovered well below freezing. They needed help.
WORLD
In the center of the park was Marina, a 25-yearold English teacher Earlier that day in January, tensions between authorities and anti-government protesters had escalated. Angered by the draconian laws introduced by embattled president Viktor Yanukovych—dubbed the “dictator laws” for their restrictions on freedom of speech and freedom of assembly—thousands of demonstrators rallied in Kiev, while opposition leaders called for the crowds to ignore the new legislation. It wasn’t long before a pitched battle kicked off between poorly armed activists and the government’s elite police units, the Berkut. The cops were supported by hundreds of sportswear-clad thugs (known as titushki), who were hired by Yanukovych’s regime to coerce and intimidate crowds. At that point, the day’s clashes were the biggest display of violence the two-month EuroMaidan demonstrations had seen.
who abandoned the new life she’d created for herself in the Netherlands when she saw reports of the demonstrations and the state-sponsored violence that surrounded them. Returning home in mid December, she had joined the protest camp on Hrushevskoho Street, where she volunteered as a medical assistant with the Maidan self-defence force’s “Fifth Squad.” Protesters at the barricades were loosely organized into groups of about 100, known—logically—as the “Hundreds.” The Fifth Squad had suffered heavily during the clashes, forcing some to disperse, while others lay around Marina, screaming in agony. “We have to evacuate them—can you not see they’re
MARINA, A 25-YEAR-OLD ENGLISH TEACHER TURNED MAKESHIFT MEDIC. HERE SHE IS TELLING HER STORY AND REFLECTING ON THE HORRIBLE EVENTS SHE EXPERIENCED.
22
MIRACLE IN
KIEV
“Leave him—he’s dead,” cried the protesters. “You’re medics; we need you for the living.”
Losing blood from a gunshot wound to her throat, Olesya Zhukovska sent what she must have thought was her final tweet. “I am dying,” the 21-year-old wrote in Ukrainian on Thursday after being struck by a bullet. She was working as a volunteer medic amid fierce clashes between police and anti-government protesters in Kiev. Moments later she lost consciousness.
This desperate moment was captured in a photo showing Zhukovska clutching her neck with one hand and her cellphone with the o ther. The picture garnered more than 6,000 re-tweets in 24 hours, sparking widespread rumors of her death. But Zhukovska received emergency surgery and survived.Her next tweet came Friday: “I am alive! Thanks to everyone who supports and prays for me! I am in a hospital, my condition is stable so far!”
injured?” Marina begged police and titushki. But they refused. And when she persisted, she was met with a tirade of vile abuse. “You bitch! You fucking whore!” .In spite of their threats she persisted, all the while fearing that her fiancé, Igor—the Fifth they screamed at her, before joking and laughing about all the casualties they had caused Squad’s 28-yearold second-in-command—was among the wounded. An Orthodox priest later joined her in her pleas, and
eventually the injured were allowed to be removed from the park. Covered head-to-toe in dirt and stained with the blood of the injured, Marina left and headed down into the Maidan. She told me about these events in a matter-of-fact way, but the lines on her face illustrated exactly how exhausted she was from the weeks of consistent violence. “When you feel so strongly like this, it’s not bravery,” she said. “You do what you have to do.”
WORLD
Sergei, a 48-year old doctor from the nearby Poltava region, was in charge of the Fifth Squad’s medical operation.
As a trained traumatologist, he brought muchneeded medical expertise to the situation, though his work at a private medical practice was a long way from conducting surgical operations on the front lines of Ukraine’s worst unrest since the fall of the USSR. Nevertheless, Sergei and his team treated hundreds of wounded—including 12 gunshot victims in a single day—without once losing a patient. Speaking through Marina, Sergei shared further details of the clashes that started on January 19 and continued for three days.
Particularly disturbing was the news of an unknown, powder-based chemical of Russian origin being used by riot police against the protesters. Scores of blinded people with severely irritated corneas were brought in, but attempts to clean the eyes with distilled water or eye drops only exacerbated the problem. The team was at a loss as to how to deal with the growing number of victims. And to make matters worse, the chemical was blowing into the tent and affecting the medical staff. All Sergei could do was wear a peaked fur cap to try and catch some of the dust, hoping it would reduce the amount blowing into his eyes or falling onto the already injured patients. After a few hours, the team stumbled across a simple remedy: alkaline, lidocaine, and corneal gel. Luckily, no one reported any longterm damage from the mystery powder. Patients with eye injuries were among the most common in their medical tent, Sergei explained, before rattling off a list of injuries and treatments. One man had taken a shotgun pellet to the eye. Fortunately, he was blinking at the time, which pushed the pellet downward and away from the eye itself, lodging deep in the soft flesh between his eyeball and its socket. Many patients checked into the tent covered in white powder, with shrapnel wounds to their eyes, face, neck, and chest. The white powder was likely aluminium or magnesium-oxide residue left after the detonation of stun grenades. The Berkut were issued non-lethal flashbang grenades, but in order to increase their deadliness, often duct-taped nails and other pieces of shrapnel to the devices. It was this tactic that caused a string of injuries and deaths. One man had taken shrapnel from a modified stun grenade to his neck and was placed, screaming, onto a stretcher. But the shrapnel had pierced his carotid artery, and he bled out before he could reach the tent. “Leave him—he’s dead,” cried the protesters. “You’re medics; we need you for the living.” Along with shrapnel wounds came a series
of horrific injuries from blunt-force trauma—shattered limbs, crushed skulls, fractured cheekbones. On January 21, a group of Cossacks charged the police lines with little more than their traditional clubs, bulawa, which resemble medieval maces. They were soon overwhelmed by the police, whose lines pushed closer to the medical tent. Sergei drew me a picture of one of the clubs that had been seized from a Cossack and used against him, puncturing his skull.
The injuries had already been horrific up to this point, however, the worst was yet to come.
On February 18, a month after the “dictator-law” clashes, police launched a coordinated assault on the Maidan in a final attempt to drive demonstrators out and bring an end to the protest. Using tear gas and live fire, Berkut and titushki thugs advanced from the high ground on the east of the square, destroying everything they passed. The medical tent, despite being clearly marked with red crosses, took direct hits from Berkut Molotov
25
A MOTHER’S AGONY AS SHE FINDS HER SON WITH THE OTHER KIEV CASUALTIES OF THE DAY. THE MEDICS CAN ONLY DO SO MUCH
WORLD
cocktails; the Fifth Squad had just enough time to evacuate the wounded and take as many medical supplies as they could before the tent went up in flames. The team then set up camp in the concrete Trade Unions Building. They felt they would be secure on the third floor of the building, as it also housed both the EuroMaidan kitchens and press office. But their time there didn’t last long, as the building was almost immediately razed by targeted firebombing from the authorities. Hours after the destruction of their second home, the Fifth Squad relocated to a vacant shoe shop on the edge of the Maidan. The location was perfect: Clean white walls and diffuse lighting provided ideal conditions for emergency surgery, and the shop’s ample shelving and storage space were filled with medical supplies donated from across Kiev. From their new base, the team continued to treat the wounded. Their workload peaked on February 20—the pair estimating they saw more than 100 patients that day. Of all the cases described to me, one in particular stands out as perhaps the most gruesome. A young man who had been confronting police from on top of the Fifth Squad’s barricade was hit by the unknown Russian irritant power. Blinded, the man was then shot through the hip by a round from a police AKM assault rifle. The impact of the weighty 7.62mm bullet knocked him off balance, sending him plummeting to the ground and shattering his spine. While he screamed and convulsed from the pain, the team dealt with his gunshot wound and stemmed the bleeding—a move that saved his life. The severity of his spinal injuries, however, demanded immediate hospitalization if there was to be any hope of preventing paralyzation. But the man refused to go to hospital, terrified that by doing so he would be referred to the authorities, who would subject him to even more brutality.
The injuries had already been horrific up to this point, but the worst was yet to come.
A GROUP OF MAKESHIFT MEDICS EVACUATE A MAN WHO SUSTAINED A SEVERE PUNCTURE WOUND TO HIS LEG, AS WELL AS INJURIES TO BOTH OF HIS EYES. RETRIEVING THE INJURED FROM THE FIELD WAS A CONSTANT STRUGGLE.
WORLD
“But though they’ve won the battle, activists fear the war will continue.”
Mercifully, since the removal of Viktor Yanukovych on February 22, violence has subsided and the Maidan has returned to peace. But though they’ve won the battle, activists fear the war will continue, as those responsible for the corruption that triggered the uprising—as well as the subsequent massacre of civilians— have yet to be brought to justice. For now, Marina’s fiancé, Igor, along with his squad of volunteer troops, will continue to man their barricade until justice has been won and elections have been held. As bloody as this conflict was, it is thanks to the makeshift medics who risked their own lives, the lives of many others were saved.
BRAIN GAIN
BY ALEX HORNE
WILL ‘SMART DRUGS’ REALLY MAKE US SMARTER, OR JUST RUIN OUR LIVES? It’s not exactly news that people do drugs in college. But in recent years there’s been a flurry of reports from both the UK and here in the US that suggest students are increasingly getting high to help them do their work, rather than to block out its existence until the day it’s due. The majority of media attention awarded to these “smart drugs” so far has been directed at their misuse, given that some of the most popular substances—like Ritalin, Adderall, and modafinil—were originally developed to combat specific disorders, such as ADHD or narcolepsy. But there’s also been a steady rise in the use of supplements designed to improve brainpower in healthy adults over extended periods of time, as opposed to the brief but efficient effect you’ll get from using any of the time-tested prescription drugs.
PHOTO CREDIT: ANTONIO CADENAS
DOMESTIC
THESE SUPPLEMENTS ARE KNOWN AS NOOTROPICS and range from the mundane (ginseng) to the unpronounceable (phenylalanine). As with the prescription drugs, little is known about their long-term side effects. It’s difficult to draw any clear distinctions between nootropics and other brain-boosting drugs, but if you, like many others, share the views of John Harris—professor of bioethics at Manchester University in England— there’s very little need to draw those distinctions in the first place. “I’m interested in cognitive-enhancing drugs,” he said. “How you define nootropics doesn’t interest me.” Of course, not everyone agrees. Corneliu E Giurgea, a Romanian psychologist and chemist, synthesized piracetam—the first nootropic—in 1964 and established an exact set of criteria in doing so. For Giurgea, nootropics must enhance learning acquisition, increase the coupling of the brain’s hemispheres, and improve executive processing (that last one involves tasks such as planning, paying attention, and spatial awareness). Importantly, these drugs must also be nontoxic and non-addictive.
Due to the wide variety of supplements classed as nootropics, there’s no single way of explaining how they work. Broadly speaking, however, nootropics achieve their effects by altering the supply of neurochemicals, enzymes, or hormones in the brain. Giurgea’s piracetam, for example, can improve the memory of users by altering the levels of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which, in turn, affects the plasticity of synapses in the brain (the extent to which entire brain structures, and the brain itself, can change from experiences). We understand our memories to be composed of complex matrices of synapses, and our ability to access them is related to how well they can link. Improved plasticity makes it easier for synapses to hook up. Three of the most popular British vendors (Nootropics.co.uk, Intellimeds.co.uk, and SmartNootropics. co.uk) have all appeared in the last two years, so it’s clear that there’s been a recent surge in the popularity of nootropics. However, the benefits of some of the substances used to make the supplements have been known for years.
DOMESTIC
We all know the perks of caffeine, for instance, and the brain-boosting power of fish oil has been touted for as long as any of us can remember (with or without the help of nootropics). For those reasons, caffeine and fish oil form the base of many nootropic “stacks”—super-effective nootropic combinations. As with all drugs, the government’s method for legislating cognitive enhancers is scattershot at best. Modafinil—a substance created to treat narcolepsy— cannot be sold legally without a prescription in the UK, but it is legal to import for personal use. The same goes for piracetam. This creates a pretty illogical situation in which UK suppliers can sell experimental nootropics unimpeded but cannot legally sell piracetam—a substance that has been thoroughly proven as safe for more than 40 years.
5 WAYS TO TRAIN YOUR BRAIN Drug-averse? You can keep your mind agile with games instead. 1. Use your computer mouse with your nondominant hand. 2. Turn the analog clock you use the most upside down. 3. Wear your watch on the opposite wrist (up the cognitive boost by turning it upside down, too). 4. Avoid the word the in a conversation. 5. Chew gum (FYI: The brain stimulation lasts only while you’re chewing).
Duke says of humans, “We are all nootnauts; some of us just try harder.” And it’s a sentiment that’s been true throughout our history. Great advances in our evolution have been precipitated by adjustments to our diets. Our brains swelled when we began eating meat 2.3 million years ago. Then, a million years later, our ability to cook food gave rise to Homo erectus, our closest ancestor, who developed a digestive system 20 percent smaller and a brain 20 percent larger than his predecessors. In the 1950s, Britain and America experimented with mind-altering technology for military gain. One of the CIA’s most cartoonishly evil projects, MKUltra, investigated the effects of psychotropic drugs, shock therapy, and hypnosis on participants, some willing and some not. Scientists attempted to make their subjects better at dealing with torture or more likely to tell the truth, and worked to “increase the efficiency of mentation and perception.” However, the science backfired, and the agency’s attempts to control the human mind had remarkably counterproductive results. Ken Kesey and Robert Hunter were two volunteers for the MKUltra experiment at Menlo Park Veterans Hospital, a mental health facility in California. Kesey spent time talking to the patients there and decided that they were socially marginalized rather than insane.
HIS EXPERIENCES INSPIRED HIM TO WRITE THE NOVEL ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOOS’ NEST.
free will is more powerful than our chemical makeup Hunter would go on to join The Grateful Dead, and it is said that he was under the influence of the MKUltra experiments when he wrote the words to “China Cat Sunflower.”Both figures played a seminal role in arguably the biggest cultural movement of the 20th Century—one that endorsed the use of psychedelics for their ability to broaden horizons and produce a new kind of society.
Timothy Leary, a close friend of Kesey’s, took a scientific approach to expanding consciousness. In 1964, he published The Psychedelic Experience, which laid out a practical framework for experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs. In Romania, in the same year, Giurgea published The Fundamentals to the Pharmacology of the Mind, in which he stated: “Man is not going to wait passively for millions of
DOMESTIC
SO WHILE SMART DRUGS CAN PROVIDE AN EDGE IN A WORLD WHERE PROCESSING POWER IS PARAMOUNT, VIEWING THEM AS A UNIVERSAL CURE, RISKS REDUCING HUMANS TO AUTOMATONS
DOMESTIC GIURGEA’S NOOTROPIC CRITERIA Cognitive enhancers are drugs, supplements, nutraceuticals, and functional foods that enhance attentional control and memory.Nootropics are cognitive enhancers that are neuroprotective or extremely nontoxic. Nootropics (such as Modafinil) are by definition cognitive enhancers, but a cognitive enhancer is not necessarily a nootropic. Giurgea’s nootropic criteria: 1. Enhances learning and memory. 2. Enhances learned behaviors under conditions which are known to disrupt them (e.g. hypoxia, sleep deprivation). 3. Protects the brain from physical or chemical injury. 4. Enhances the tonic cortical/subcortical control mechanisms 5. Exhibits few side effects and extremely low toxicity, while lacking the pharmacology of typical psychotropic drugs (motor stimulation, sedation, etc.). Since Giurgea’s original criteria were first published, there has been little agreement as to what truly constitutes a nootropic compound. The most well defined criteria to date was established by Skondia in 1979. Skondia uses a metabolic approach, taking into account the pharmacological mode of action.
A RECENT STUDY FROM DUKE UNIVERSITY SHOWED A REMARKABLE INCREASE IN THE USE OF SMART DRUGS OVER MIDTERM AND FINAL EXAM WEEKS.
years before evolution offers him a better brain.” In the eyes of the scientific community, Leary’s passion for his subject transformed him from detached researcher to evangelist—the pervasive memory of him is of a guy who dropped acid with Allen Ginsberg and John Lennon; no one really remembers any meaningful data concerning the effects psychoactive drugs have on someone’s brain. Giurgea’s work, however, became a field of serious research.
Studies have repeatedly shown the practical benefits of nootropics, but their impact on society has been less explosive than Leary’s work. This is, in part, because the effectiveness of nootropics is dependent on an individual’s neurochemistry, which is closely tied to weight, sleep patterns, and even mood, meaning the results of their use can vary hugely.
As Leary got older, his focus moved from drugs to technology. He proclaimed that “the PC is the LSD of the 90s” and began what came to be known as the cyberpunk movement. Many adherents of the subculture went on to work in Silicon Valley, and it was from here that the Information Age unfolded. In 2010, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said: “There were five exabytes of information created between the dawn of civilization through 2003, but that much information is now created every two days.” The exact details of what he said were quickly proven to be incorrect, but we exist in a world of overwhelming information nevertheless. We are now expected to deal with an exorbitant amount of data endlessly streaming to us from every corner of our lives, and our natural response to this has been inadequate; we have no time to question fictions if they suit our worldview—the first paragraph of a Wikipedia page is as much knowledge as we need to get by. The fact remains that we are not information processors, and the human brain cannot be fully understood in terms of chemistry. Duke said: “If we were just chemicals, how can one explain free will? Free will ignores the energy-defined constraints of chemistry.” Ultimately, free will is more powerful than our chemical makeup. The brain plasticity that piracetam aids is consciously guided whenever we make a decision to learn a new language or to play an instrument.
So while smart drugs can provide an edge in a world where processing power is paramount, viewing them as a universal cure risks reducing humans to automatons. Duke says: “The jury is still out on these drugs being evolutionary as opposed to de-evolutionary. How much are we guiding our brain to make connections that cannot be re-visited without the aid of the nootropics? We certainly don’t know now, and I’m not sure if we ever will.” What he’s saying is that if we start providing cognitive enhancers to children, we may be narrowing their future capabilities, prioritizing their functionality over their creativity and individuality. William Gibson, another famous cyberpunk, once said: “Technologies are morally neutral until we apply them.” Many noonauts are currently enhancing their lives with brain-boosting supplements, but if cognitive enhancers become normalized, which is more likely: that we become a society filled with intellectual experts, or that our increased capacity for work results in a larger workload? Smartphones mean the office is always in our pocket. Smart drugs could mean the office is always in our minds. Which sounds like a really shitty place to end up.
STARVING FOR FASHION
WOMEN ARE STARVING THEMSELVES TO BE IN THE FASHION INDUSTRY. This week in New York City, hundreds of young girls will hit the runway for fashion week, the modeling world’s holiest and most competitive grail. Although participating in New York Fashion Week sounds glamorous, the lifestyle that some of these girls are engaged in—never sleeping, never eating, traveling endlessly, and constantly being judged and objectified—can be a catalyst for poor mental health. In the past decade, at least twenty models have committed suicide—some famous, some not—and there are likely many more lesser-known models whose attempts may have gone completely unreported. According to a 2012 study done by the Model Alliance, a nonprofit labor advocacy group where I work as a graphic designer, 68.3 percent of models admit to suffering from depression or anxiety. For several years of my life, I was one of those women.
SOCIAL
“NOTHING TASTES AS GOOD By far the most famous quote from Kate Moss is also her most controversial. She made it during an interview with fashion magazine WWD in 2009 when answering the question: “Do you have any mottos?” Her answer spawned a slew of complaints from body image campaigners, who claimed the supermodel encouraged eating disorders.
I started modeling professionally at the age of 19, when I was in college. I was suckered into signing with a small boutique agency in San Diego in the summer of 2007. Having grown up in a tiny suburb of San Diego misguidedly obsessing over shows like America’s Next Top Model, the opportunity to model and travel for free seemed like a no-brainer. But before my agency would allow me to sign the dotted line on my first contract, they wrapped a measuring tape around my jeans. You see, models aren’t measured in pounds—they’re measured in inches. I had to lose two inches, or roughly 15 pounds, all over my body to land the contract.
AS SKINNY FEELS.” At five feet nine, 135 pounds, and a size six, I didn’t really understand. I was tall and skinny. What did it matter if I had 37-inch hips? Yet, when my agent handed me a list of foods I could and could not eat, I said yes. On the list: chicken, fish, steamed vegetables, and other sources of lean protein, like almonds and eggs. Pretty much every other kind of food item (especially bread) was off limits. As a 19-year-old whose concept of nutrition went as far as her university’s dining hall, I didn’t understand that 800 calories a day countered by two hours of exercise was a starvation diet, something capable of doing long-term damage to my metabolism. I lost 20 pounds in seven weeks, going from a size six to a size two—a drastic weight loss, which terrified my family and delighted my agent. Miserable and frail, I was promptly sent to work in New York City. In New York, the weight became a struggle to keep off, but new jobs and praise from my agency made me think it was worth it. “You’re so skinny,” my room-
mates would coo, as we cooked vegetable “fajitas” (vegetables, water, and corn tortillas) on our budget stove. I binged at free dinners provided by promoters and punished myself afterwards by not eating for days. I would walk miles around the city for hours on end just to burn off any food I’d ingested. Eventually, when school started again, I took another semester off to travel abroad on a potential modeling contract in Korea—which didn’t happen, because I gained a few pounds, causing my agency to treat me like I’d committed an awful crime. “What happened to you?” my agent gasped as I walked into her office a few pounds heavier, already mentally drafting a cancellation letter to the agency who’d expressed interest in me in Seoul.
As a model in New York, I never did anything notable. No shoots with Nick Knight or walking in an Alexander Wang runway show. Instead, I did shoots for prom catalogues and book covers, making a little bit of money with a mid-level commercial agency. But that dream of glamorous success—which only a small fraction of girls ever experience—was the literal and metaphorical carrot my agent in San Diego dangled in front of me every time I considered quitting the industry. It took me years to realize how unhappy I was. Ultimately, I had to see a therapist when I moved back home, something my family still doesn’t know about to this day (thanks to my university’s free health resources). She helped me recover and craft a newfound self-identity beyond my weight and my looks. I know that everyone’s experience isn’t like my own, but it’s important for all the would-be models out there to understand that the industry as it is today can be a breeding ground for psychological illness and there are very few resources to counteract those varying issues. Many of the friends I had in my modeling days suffered similar kinds of damage.
QUOTE BY KATE MOSS NOT * PRO-ANOREXIA STATED IN SUPPORT OF ANOREXIA BUT TO RAISE AWARENESS OF THE ALARMING ISSUE.
eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any other mental illness.
SOCIAL NOT SO FUN FACTS Individuals with eating disorders come in all shapes and sizes. Many times, the media and other public discussions about eating disorders focus solely on individuals with a diagnosis of anorexia who are severely emaciated. In reality, many individuals with anorexia may not ever appear so drastically underweight. Furthermore, many individuals with severe disorders including bulimia, binge eating, and EDNOS can be underweight, normal weight, overweight or obese and often fluctuate in weight. Even athletes who appear to be incredibly fit might be struggling with an eating disorder. The bottom line is that you cannot define someone’s health by how much they weigh and you cannot determine whether they have an eating disorder just by looking at them.
TO BE CALLED A SUPERMODEL could mean anything as simple as an exaggerated “You look nice today!” or an uplifting “Wow! Have you lost weight?” Regardless of the context, rendering someone as a supermodel consistently depicts them in a positive and physically attractive light. Society spends millions of dollars each year on fashion magazines, runway shows, and further publicizing of stick thin models showing off
baby sized clothing that, in reality, will only fit a small percent of today’s adult population. The issue here is the fact that as publicity continues to grow, the depiction of a beautiful woman begins to reflect the unrealistic characteristics of such a miniscule population. Women feel unsatisfied and self-conscious
about their otherwise ideal body types in comparison to the widely accepted image of an anorexic model. In reality, the statistics regarding the typical female model deem themselves shocking. In fact, the author of The Healthy Place—America’s Mental Health Program claims that, “today’s fashion models weigh 23% less than the average female, and a young woman between the ages of 18-34 has a 1% chance of being as thin as a supermodel.” When compared to how commonly individuals in the United States view a model’s body as the perfect body shape, the percentage of those who actually achieve it are immensely out of proportion. The authors of the same website express concern that, “However, 69% of girls in one study said that magazine models influence their idea of the perfect body shape, and the pervasive acceptance of this unrealistic body type creates an impractical standard for the majority of women.” The numbers seem so ridiculous and unreasonable when shown out of context, but the reality exists. Women continue to set themselves up for failure as they hold such unattainable expectations for themselves, leading to lower self-esteem and anxiety prone personalities which, as previously shown, foreshadow a future development of a dreaded and detrimental eating disorder.
“EAT LESS, WEIGH LESS, FAIL LESS, FEEL LESS.” QUOTE NOT STATED IN SUPPORT OF ANOREXIA * PRO-ANOREXIA BUT TO RAISE AWARENESS THE ALARMING ISSUE.
SOCIAL
but then her disorder was validated by the excitement of a modeling contract, followed by high-profile bookings in New York and Milan. It was a sick cycle of validation that made her feel like she was doing the right thing by starving herself.
Earlier this week over a Skype call, I was discussing these issues with Laurel Stovall, a 27-year-old model and close friend of mine who I connected with years ago online after stumbling upon her blog, which sometimes covers the modeling world. It was on this call that she opened up to me for the first time and made me realize we really weren’t that different.
“Everyone around you tells you how lucky you are, every single f***ing day. And you know what? Sometimes you are,” she said to me last week. “I didn’t know any better. I thought it was cool. I was getting out of my hometown of Reno... Yet I felt like garbage all the time.” Laurel signed with a top agency in the city, coming within an inch of booking Calvin Klein—one of fashion week’s most prestigious shows. “I was actually on exclusive twice, but [show coordinators from Calvin Klein] called my agency and told them I was too thin. My agent told me to just go home and eat nothing but peanut butter for two weeks. This is how you guys think you’re going to solve the problem? Peanut butter?”
“MY AGENT TOLD ME TO JUST GO HOME AND EAT NOTHING BUT PEANUT BUTTER FOR TWO WEEKS.” Laurel was 23 and suffering from a severe eating disorder when discovered by an agent from a top modeling agency in 2010. Before she even became a professional model, she was dangerously skinny, weighing 116 pounds at 5 feet 11 inches. The day the agent approached her, she told me she was the sickest and saddest she’d ever been. “And the agent, she just looked at me and said, ‘Are you signed?’” Laurel explained. At the time she was discovered, she was getting ready to seek professional help,
Today, like me, Laurel has left high fashion world of NYC behind and instead does more commercial work in LA, where she can be a size six and still get work. She’s also turning a new page in her life beyond the confines of the industry and is applying to grad school with plans to work in politics. “When I tell people I wasn’t really happy as a model and I was looking to change that, they were shocked,” Laurel said. “I couldn’t deal with such an utter lack of control. It’s so empowering to realize I can control it— that I can change things, that this is my life.”
NOT SO FUN FACTS Eating disorders are categorized as mental illnesses where there is an unhealthy relationship with food. People with eating disorders often struggle with body image and disrupts their normal activities with unusual eating habits to alter their appearance. There are 3 main eating disorders: Anorexia Nervosa, fear of gaining weight or becoming fat, Bulimia Nervosa, the act of binge eating then purging or vomiting, and Binge Eating Disorder, eating until uncomfortably full in one sitting. Eating disorders can be genetic or caused by psychological issues like coping skills, control issues, trauma, family trouble, or social issues. Each type of eating disorder has many possible causes. Approximately 24 million people in the U.S. struggle with an eating disorder. Almost 50% of these people also meet the criteria for depression. A mere 10% of people with eating disorders receive treatment, and of those only 35% seek treatment from a facility that specializes in eating disorders.
THE AUTHOR IN ONE OF HER FIRST TEST SHOOTS. SHE WAS 19 AND 115 POUNDS.
It’s hard to talk about sex in Arabic. The taboo on the subject—both formal and informal—restricts everything from music and movies to the education system, with many Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Egypt banning the topic of “reproduction” in school. The subject is unheard of even in adult conversation and pop culture reflects that. Not only does this make for boring TV, polite conversation continues at the expense of human rights. The taboo allows archaic rules against sexuality to go unchecked, leading to a lack of sex education that directly correlates to the rise of HIV, complications from botched DIY abortions, and the silencing of rape victims.
CULTURAL
Mashrou’ Leila have been notoriously controversial It’s even harder to sing about sex in Arabic. And not just any sex. Gay sex. What little mention of sex that exists in public discourse has played it safe, even in the more progressive Arab nations, limiting the topic in a way that only reinforces the state-approved morality. The media continues to adhere to this standard, creating some of the most self-censored music around. Record companies in the Arab world never had an interest in male musicians singing about marrying other dudes. But Mashrou’ Leila sang about it anyway. As a Beirut-based indie rock band, Mashrou’ Leila set out to change the Arab pop music the group saw as hackneyed and too complacent with cultural limitations on sexuality. Lead singer Hamed Sinno, who is openly gay, has never shed away from penning lyrics more indicative of his own life than of the clichéd “boy meets girl” trope that monopolized the Arabic music industry. In “Shim el Yasmine,” he sings about a man whom he wanted to introduce to his parents as his groom, and for the past 6 years, Mashrou’ Leila has sung loudly about gay rights in a country that doesn’t have any. Sure, they’re the first Arabic-speaking rock band to discuss gay rights, and that’s pretty awesome. But the subject is more than taboo—it’s illegal. Article 534 of the Lebanese Penal Code prohibits sexual activity that “contradicts the laws of nature.” Acts considered unnatural, such as homosexuality, are met with arrests on the streets and in homes, along with a year in jail. The arrests aren’t always random; in fact, often they are targeted at cultural hubs that further influence Lebanon’s youth towards a more tolerant lifestyle. At the request of the mayor of Dekwaneh, a Beirut suburb, police
raided and shut down various gay-friendly nightclubs in Beirut last year. The police took their actions one step further, teaching a lesson through humiliation: They forced the club goers to undress and be photographed naked in the municipal headquarters. Since they began in 2008, Mashrou’ Leila have been notoriously controversial, and not just for their pro-gay lyrics. When they had the chance to perform before former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, they addressed him in the audience directly before playing one of their most politically charged songs “al Hajiz” (“The Checkpoint.”) Refusing to censor themselves, they sang every lyric to the politician, including chants of “you fucker.” Their lyrics have charted Arab Spring and the progression of gay rights better than some news agencies, but the band doesn’t claim to speak for anyone. “It would be crippling to actually try to speak for others the way others often assume we should,” guitarist Firas Abou Fakher told me. But whether it was their intention or not, Mashrou’ Leila’s lyrics have been used to articulate the sentiment of the youth in Beirut, and they’ve made Arabic Indie Rock the loudest advocate for human rights, and specifically gay rights, in the Arab world. Once they started singing about sex, more people began talking about sex. Now the cultural stigma around the issue is rapidly changing. Lebanese LGBT rights organizations such as Helem have held lectures and demonstrations. Meem, a lesbian NGO, offers legal support and human rights advocacy. Mashrou’ Leila’s insistence on the subject matter in music was a wel-
RECORD COMPANIES IN ARAB NEVER HAD AN INTEREST IN MALE MUSICIANS SINGING ABOUT MARRYING OTHER DUDES. BUT MASHROU’ LEILA SANG ABOUT IT ANYWAY.
THE FIRST ARABICSPEAKING ROCK BAND TO DISCUSS GAY RIGHTS, AND THAT’S PRETTY AWESOME.
CULTURAL ONE ON ONE Hey. You guys talk about sex a lot. Has the discourse on sexuality changed in Lebanon since you started? The Lebanese sexual dialogue has come a long way in recent years, and the recent shift in public discourse from one of stigmatization to one of unashamed support is life-changing for many. And many of these things come into account when we write music. Our personal state, or combined state, what music we’ve been listening to, the struggles we face from the utterly insignificant to the deluded worldchanging ambitions, but censorship is not one of them.
comed change for many, allowing the topic of gay rights to seep into the cultural mainstream, and leaving politicians no choice but to discuss it themselves. Last year, Lebanon became the first Arab country to declassify homosexuality as a “disease,” and just this month a Beirut judge ruled out a case against a transgender woman, arguing that Article 534 should not be applied to same sex couples, as gay sex is not “unnatural.” The news of this court decision in favor of the transgender defendant was cited as a major LGBT victory across world headlines, leading many to speculate that Lebanon is changing a lot faster than we may have given it credit for. But Mashrou’ Leila says to not be so fast with the celebration or in thinking that much has changed. Not only can the next judge just as easily apply Article 534 to homosexuality in the next case, but institutions such as gay marriage, gays in the military, adoption by gay couples, recognition of gay couples, and anti-discrimination codes in the workplace are all still illegal. The only real change is that finally people are starting to talk about it. In their first interview with an American publication, Mashrou’ Leila talked to me about the changing times in the Arab world and what Arabic indie rock has to say about it. Mashrou’ Leila have come under fire for the candour of their lyrics, sung by frontman Hamed Sinno. Their bold decision to sing about sexuality in a region where this is not readily accepted is unprecedented. Take Shim El Yasmine (“Smell the Jasmine”), which is about a gay relationship and sung by Sinno as though torn between pain and ecstasy: “I would have liked to keep you near me/Introduce you to my parents/have you crown my heart/Cook your food, sweep your home/Spoil your kids, be your housewife.” At the Baalbek music festival in Lebanon in July, Sinno referred to getting “a lot of shit for [his] sexuality”, and for song lyrics that were about gender and sexuality.
CULTURAL
THE BAND ARE PART OF A REBELLIOUS SURGE OF NEW BANDS IN THE MIDDLE EAST
ONE ON ONE CONTINUED... Has it gotten easier for you as a band to start discussions about homophobia? It’s always been and always will be about writing whatever feels right. It hasn’t gotten easier or harder, because people’s reactions still aren’t a basic criterion during the writing process. It’s interesting though that, perhaps as a byproduct of the way the Arab pop music industry navigates artist-audience relationships, many listeners are often under the impression that they are implicated, in the sense where the lyrics owe them some sort of representation. It’s extremely flattering, but at the same time slightly tiring because you can’t really factor in other people’s sentiments when trying to put your own in writing. Is this why you want to Occupy Arab Pop? The #OccupyArabPop hashtag started with our crowd funding campaign, and with our ambition to imagine a space in Arab Pop music for alternatives to the tried and tested formulas spouted by the major player labels in the Middle East.
Nevertheless, he dismissed the idea that the band deliberately courts controversy with their lyrics, insisting they just sing about what matters to their generation. “We go down those roads when we feel it’s necessary.” Going down such roads has not prevented them from gaining a following. They currently have 108,000 likes on Facebook, quite an accomplishment for an independent band with virtually no corporate backing in the
Middle East (they crowdfunded their latest album, to bypass censorship and the control of record labels). The band are part of a rebellious surge of new bands in the Middle East, such as El Morabba3 in Jordan and Lebanon’s Zeid and the Wings. They all emerged around the time of the Arab spring, creating a potent fusion of pop and politics.
61
INTERNET
5
WOMEN WHO SECRELY CONTROL THE INTERNET
05
01 SHERYL SANDBERG
While Mark Zuckerberg locks himself in his office, coding minor site features for Facebook that tend to do nothing but make 400 million people around the world angry, Sheryl Sandberg runs day-to-day operations and maintains a positive public image for the most popular site in the world. Sandberg was stolen away from Google after meeting Zuckerberg at a Christmas party. Before that, she did some things to help save the world, namely working with the World Bank on leprosy, AIDS, and blindness as well as helping the U.S. Treasury forgive debt in developing countries. So, anyone else feeling unaccomplished?
01
04
03 02 /02 GERRI MARTIN-FLICKINGER – CIO OF ADOBE /03 LIMOR FRIED – PROLIFIC FEMALE ENGINEER /04 NATALIE MASSENET – FOUNDER OF NET-A-PORTER /05 HEATHER HARDE –CEO OF TECHCRUNCH
5 /0
INTERNET TWITTER TRIES TO DEFUSE THE TURKEY CONTROVERSY Twitter has agreed to close some accounts in Turkey, but the two sides are still at loggerheads over allegations of tax evasion and whether or not Twitter must maintain a physical presence in the country. Twitter Vice President of Global Public Policy Colin Crowell led a delegation of sorts to address the country’s multifaceted grievances with the social media site.
4 INTERNET
Following Turkey’s decision to ban Twitter, a domestic court ruled that the ban should be lifted. Alas, Erdogan – who has dubbed Twitter a “scourge” – is not giving up on the blockade.
13 TV
Twitter did indeed agree to close some particularly objectionable accounts, but there was no deal for Twitter to pay Turkish taxes, or to set up an office there, a long-running complaint.
IN THE KNOW 38 RADIO
Twitter was banned in Turkey in March. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s administration followed that up with claims that the company was evading taxes and refusing to heed to Turkish law.
80% OF EMAILS ARE SPAM
YEARS TO REACH 50 MILLION USERS
210,000, 000,000, 000,000 EMAILS SENT DAILY
MOST USED EMAIL OUTLETS
1 iPhone 2 Gmail 3 iPad
TECHNOLOGY MUSIC It’s that time of week to get a taste of some sweet tunes. An in-depth resource for finding out more about the albums, bands, musicians and songs you love. To get more on that daily good stuff, check it out at blindeye.com/music
FUTURE ISLANDS Singles
Singles is a great balance of pop and melodrama. It’s built around the sturdy new wave beat, almost always four on the floor, giving Herring a comfortable frame in which to sing. Its themes are also symmetrical, as Herring plays with antithesis like an eager English student: day and night, sun and moon, summer and winter, man and woman. His words are the sort of thing that would tumble out of your mouth if you were told to write a love poem right now in eight seconds. “She looks like the moon/ So close and yet so far”. Future Islands is a band that’s built its career on creating a bunch of songs about being heartbroken and feeling really, really sad. That’s cool. We’re into it. It sucks when relationships end, whatever.
Google Fiber starts with a connection that is up to 100 times faster than today’s average broadband speeds. Instant downloads. Crystal clear high definition TV. And endless possibilities.
google.com/fiber
MUSIC
FREDDIE GIBBS & MADLIB
2
PIÑATA
Freddie Gibbs is one of the best MCs ever to take his ski mask off long enough to spit a 16, and Madlib makes better beats than Jesus would if Jesus made beats. On this record, like Spade and Farley before them, they bring out the best in each other...
TYCHO
3
AWAKE
Leave it to a graphic designer to make the Helvetica of electro-acoustic ambient post-rock—neutral tones, spare production, minimal clarity with zero “meaning,” whatever that means. I’d probably drop a hundo at PacSun with zero guilt.
EVIAN CHRIST
4
WATERFALL
Kanye’s been on the spectrum since “Through the Wire,” but like any savant, he excels at one very specific thing: executive-producing some of the most striking rap music ever, and pushing the genre light years into the future.
NOTHING
5
GUILTY OF EVERYTHING
Look, sometimes you’re just scared, OK? If you’re too hetero to admit that, then maybe we shouldn’t be friends. Like, I can see 30 so clearly, and if I just keep running long enough, keep my job, and stay with my fiancé, maybe things will work out for me.
WHAT DID AND DIDN’T SUCK AT RECORD STORE DAY 2014 Record Store Day is a time every third Saturday in April when vinyl nerds worldwide spend hours in line outside music shops and drop hundreds of dollars on waxy black discs. Like every Record Store Day before it, this one was the “biggest ever,” with an unprecedented amount of special releases: more than 700 in the UK and US combined. As if music journalism needed yet another excuse to queef out more page filler, the magnitude of this year’s Record Store Day had every online publication taking the master release list (officially
announced in late March) and distilling it down to anywhere from five to 50 “recommended” titles. To spell it out, readers who had access to the official release list should have been offended at the assumption that cognitive listeners need their hands held as they sort through a big, confusing list of 450+ releases. And let’s not get started on the percentage of those lists that are assembled with some under-the-table padding of record collections or other nefarious motivations.
S T O P ANIMAL ABUSE IN YOUR CITY Change.org is the world’s largest petition platform, empowering people everywhere to create the change they want to see. – locally, nationally and globally.
YOU CAN’T PUT A PRICE ON KNOWLEDGE, BUT IF YOU COULD, WE THINK IT WOULD BE ABOUT $35.00.
PURCHASE A ONE YEAR SUBSCRIPTION TO BLINDEYE FOR $35.00 AND SAVE UP TO 82% OFF THE NEWSTAND PRICE.
The road less traveled is seldom plowed.
Subaru’s symmetrical All-Wheel Drive never met a snow, sleet, or ice it couldn’t handle. A stability and traction control system keeps you headed in the right direction. And as a 2012 IIHS Top Safety Pick, it’s perfectly suited to take you to the heart of winter. Love.
It’s what makes a subaru, a subaru.
The Subaru Outback: Well-equipped at $23,195
NEXT MONTH
A MAN AND THE SEA THE GRITTY, CAPTIVATING LIFE OF A PRIVATE FISHING BOAT CAPTAIN
TECHNOLOGY