What surprises me so much about Desert Noises self-titled EP is just how kinetic it is. Knowing that it was released by local label Northplatte Records, I expected on my first listen to hear a well polished—and emotionally rich—work, with roots in folk music. And I did. But the record also isn’t merely a gentle charting of pathos. Instead, its tonal diversity at once elicits sorrow, exuberance, and nostalgia. Some songs are slow, while others are very nearly danceable, but all of them represent a raw convergence of different musical genres and philosophies.

This Saturday, Desert Noises will be giving away said debut EP for free during their show at Velour. The concert will also feature Sayde Price and Parlor Hawk (formerly Moses), and will be the first chance audiences have to hear Parlor Hawk’s upcoming album, which will be playing between sets. For Desert Noises, however, the show will be a chance to get people interested before they return to the studio to work on their next album.

“We want people to know about us, but at the same time we want them to have something while they’re waiting for the new release,” said Kyle Henderson, who plays guitar and sings in the band. “We think the old EP should be in people’s hands, instead of them having to pay for it.”

And given the clarity the EP achieves, that next album should be well worth the wait.

The EP begins with “Morning Song,” a reverb- and harmony-heavy piece that, at only 44 seconds long, feels more like a prelude than an opener. It’s pretty, and I wouldn’t have minded hearing what it could have become as a full song, but as it currently stands it also provides a sharp contrast for the more explosive second track, “Mad Moon.” That song is similarly folk-based, but feels much more expansive with its full band. I especially appreciated the xylophone in the background, and though Desert Noises isn’t the first band to write a song like this, they do it as well as anyone.

“Building Glass Walls” comes next and is probably my favorite track on the record. It combines the spacey folk-rock I had expected to hear with a surprising dance beat. It’s ethereal, but upbeat, and makes the argument that Desert Noises isn’t a band that should always be listened to sitting down.

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This post may be controversial to some, but I see it as something worth talking about.

I heard about Peter Duesberg last semester in my BIO 1610 class, then I read a Newsweek article about him, entitled “The World’s Most Reviled Genius.” In the article you learn quite a bit about Duesberg, his professional career, as well as some basic science/biology. Duesberg became pretty famous in his pioneering work on finding the causes of cancer back in the ’60s. He set himself apart as a true savant for the next two decades, but then began going in a new direction.

He doesn't smile.

Instead of going along with the whole oncogene origin theory of cancer, to which he contributed, he theorized that aneuploidy is the true cause of cancer. In layman’s terms, this is when a cell has either an excess or absence of chromosomes. Most of the time this isn’t a problem, because cells have “self-destruct” mechanisms that takes over once this condition is recognized, but sometimes it doesn’t happen correctly. Down syndrome is caused by this, but according to Newsweek and Duesberg’s research, this condition is also present in the majority of cancers and tumors. While this isn’t a very popular idea in the U.S., some scientists overseas are starting to take notice of his research.

But this isn’t the reason why Duesberg has been ostracized from the scientific community and his peers don’t even want to be seen with him in public. No, you see, twenty years ago, when the race was on to uncover the cause behind AIDS, and HIV was looking like the premiere candidate, our rogue flatly rejected the HIV hypothesis, even after it became the accepted explanation. This stubborn refusal of such a widely accepted understanding of the disease was almost a death knell for his career.

But to this day he stands by his own theory and he isn’t the only one unconvinced. There’s a small camp claiming AIDS denialism, but it doesn’t seem he associates too much with these sort of conspiracy theorists. They tend to deny it exists altogether, claim it was government-created, or other similar stories. Where Duesberg differs is that he has other ideas on the relation between HIV and AIDS, so we can’t throw him in with that other lot.

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The Oscars are kind of silly, aren’t they? It’s one big popularity contest devised by the popular. They are filmmakers congratulating themselves for making films.

Okay, I’m not actually that cynical about this subject, but I want to make it clear that I can understand the cynicism. It’s mostly fair. But the fact remains that the Oscars matter, and they will probably continue to matter for a long time. Any association with an Oscar, whether a win or just a nomination, will benefit a filmmaker’s career. And we all know that actors get more and better work after Oscar recognition. This is just the way the industry works.

So, despite myself, I cared. I wasn’t going to watch any of it last night, but then I did. In fact, I never have, but I decided at one point that I might as well, as deeply entrenched as I am in everything film. I started to watch in time to see the Best Male Actor, Female Actor, Directing, and Picture categories. My thoughts follow.

In general, the parts of the event that I saw were warm, classy, and mostly entertaining. There were no Sean Penn moments or even overtly stupid nominations. The whole thing felt like what you sort of hope the Oscars will feel like. Maybe a little too dramatic for what it is, but it’s fun to get caught up in the moment. I was also very gratified by the overall lack of political axe-grinding.

Jeff Bridges took Best Actor for Crazy Heart, and while his speech treaded dangerously on the line between grateful and awkwardly ecstatic, the win was well-deserved and long overdue. He’s got a very large body of work behind him, and he’s an exceptional actor. It was good to see him finally take the little gold man home.

Sandra Bullock took Best Actress for The Blind Side, and her acceptance speech was wonderful. It was sincere, graceful, funny, and down-to-earth. She successfully pulled quite a few other people up to share the honor, including the other nominees. And she’s another excellent artist who is certainly deserving of the award.

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At the health care summit last week, nearly every Republican senator and congressman made clear their disapproval of using a process known as reconciliation to pass health care reform. Reconciliation is a process that is used for budgetary reasons in order to circumvent a filibuster and achieve a straight up-or-down vote. It helps needed budgetary bills move through Congress in a timelier manner. It has become somewhat of a hot-button issue due to the possible repercussions. Democrats fear using reconciliation would divide the House and the Senate or, in other words, Republicans would continue to vote no on every last thing Obama proposes. So really, there would be no repercussions.

The health care bill does, in fact, account for a large portion of the economy and would have a significant impact on the budget. Republicans actually back me up on this. By the Republicans persistent efforts, they have declared over and over again that health care accounts for a large part of the economy. At the health care summit last week, Lamar Alexander defiantly said that health care makes up roughly 17 percent of the economy and that we should not change it all at once. With that line of thought, reconciliation actually should be used in this case, right?

Republicans are very familiar with reconciliation. Of the 21 times reconciliation has been used, 15 of those were for legislation that Republicans favored. During the George W. Bush administration’s time in office, reconciliation was used three times for tax cuts — even when the Congressional Budget Office was clear about what the devastating effects would be. In 2001, the tax cuts were predicted to reduce surpluses by $1.35 billion over the following 10 years. The famous 2003 “Bush tax cuts” for the rich were projected to increase the national deficit by nearly $340 billion over the 10 subsequent years. The 2006 tax cuts were predicted to increase the deficit by only $70 billion in just a few years.

The last cut and its effects have come and gone already, so you can forget about that one. Where were fiscal conservatives on those, by the way? You know, those same conservatives that argue the health care bill will turn America into a Third World country.

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In honor of the Winter Olympics currently going down in Vancouver, this week’s Video Dose features Canadian native sons (and daughter) Arcade Fire. Admittedly, Arcade Fire is from Montreal, which is a long way from Vancouver. Still, they’re one of the most talented and successful bands in their genre to emerge recently from the Great White North.

Deciding which Arcade Fire video would be most appropriate for this Video Dose was no easy task. For me, it came down to the respective videos for “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)” and “Neighborhood #3 (Power Out),” both from the band’s debut album Funeral. (The band doesn’t have a lot of videos, but I did consider highlighting something more recent and/or fan-produced.) Ultimately, however, I decided to go with the latter choice for two reasons: it’s animated, which seemed appropriate given this year’s nomination of an animated film for Best Picture, and it’s really snowy, which fit well with the Olympics theme (and is slightly ironic in light of the shortage of snow in Vancouver right now).

It’s probably worth mentioning that despite a personal love of animation generally, I’ve frequently been disappointed by animated music videos. They often seem to miss fact that a good video is neither a short film nor a filmed concert, but rather a blending of narrative and performance. In other words, I don’t necessarily want to see a three-minute cartoon set to cool music, I want to watch a genuine music video.

In some ways, “Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)” suffers from that common problem but, for what it’s worth, the editing is more responsive to the music than many other animated videos. The CGI visuals also tie in surprisingly well with some of the band’s other videos. Together, these factors mitigate potential detachment between sound and imagery, and the result is a video that doesn’t feel lacking, even if the band itself never shows up onscreen. MTV also apparently liked the video, as it nominated “Neighborhood 3 (Power Out)” for video of the year in 2006.

Besides standing a head above other animated videos and jiving well with today’s headlines, “Neighborhood #3″ is just visually striking. It was team-directed by Plates Animation and represents a world that is historic, dystopian, and sleekly modern. Though somewhat less rooted in silent film aesthetics than “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels),” the warped cityscape is still highly evocative of early German expressionist filmmaking. Brilliantly, however, the computer animation also lends it a contemporary, phantasmagoric quality reminiscent of anime. It’s Murnau meets Miyazaki — and with that combination it can’t go wrong.

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