True, this kinetic portrait of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, a Nigerian revolutionary of song, has taken on some starry producers — including Shawn Carter (Jay-Z) and Will and Jada Pinkett Smith — and shed 15 or 20 minutes since it was staged Off Broadway last year.

...or this:

For there has never been anything on Broadway like this production, which traces the life of Fela Kuti (1938-97) through the prism of the Shrine, the Lagos nightclub where Fela (pronounced FAY-lah) reigned not only as a performer of his incendiary songs (which make up most of the score) but also as the self-proclaimed president of his own autonomous republic.

This is the most interesting piece of information:

Nyansh is Afrobeat’s foundation, over which are layered elements explained in a number called “B.I.D. (Breaking It Down),” which traces the musical education of Fela from his youth in Lagos (where highlife jazz dominated) to his student days in London (where he listened to John Coltrane and Frank Sinatra). Somewhere along the way, the sounds of Chano Pozo and James Brown entered his aural landscape...

Joker, MC Nomad, Introcut, Sublo

Joker's productions bear dubstep's serious low-end pressure, but they move and sparkle with a lightness that's anything but ponderous, as much of the genre's output can be. His melodies possess a sort of comic-book vividness (and, at times, melodrama), coming over alternately ominous and whimsical, but always memorable; check out "City Hopper" for explicit proof. Joker's very young and still developing, but he's already showing exceptional promise amid dubstep's fertile grow bed. DAVE SEGAL

The Books

(Triple Door) I admit that I started listening to the Books because I really like their name (they don't call me "books editor" at this here rag for nothin'). But it didn't take long to become obsessed. Most band names are only obliquely related to their sound, but the Books just makes sense as a name for these guys: The lyrics are literary, thoughtful, and moody. They make music you can read to—understated, thoughtful, not one plucked guitar string or ambient loop out of place to distract you from the page. I suggest bringing a copy of Jonathan Lethem's Chronic City to this show; try reading a chapter in the middle of their set and you'll see exactly what I mean. PAUL CONSTANT

Peaches, Amanda Blank

(Showbox at the Market) Peaches and Amanda Blank represent the cream (pun intended) of the not particularly overcrowded white-female sex-rap field. The former is now an elder stateswoman for lyrical raunch and electro-rock crunch, but her once-libido-liberating shtick has brought increasingly flaccid returns since her peak with 2000's The Teaches of Peaches. Amanda Blank made the most of cameos on hipster-rap titans Spank Rock's "Bump" and "Blow," and parlayed that fruitful association into a solo-artist deal with Downtown Records. Blank's speedy XXX-ploitation flows have been somewhat tamed on her debut album, I Love You, on which she combines coquettish singing with her precision-tooled yet sultry rapping. Her producers—Diplo, XXXchange, and Switch—bring their B games, but Blank's charismatic cockiness will keep horndogs and the women who dig 'em listening. The homages to LL Cool J's "I Need Love" and Romeo Void's "Never Say Never" are utterly unnecessary, though. DAVE SEGAL

Kelly Clarkson, Eric Hutchinson, Parachute

(WaMu Theater) Is Kelly Clarkson the most normal pop star ever? I ask this in earnest and mean it as a compliment. From her grassroots triumph on American Idol through her universe-conquering megahit "Since U Been Gone" (currently riding high in best-of-the-decade roundups) through her bravely petulant battles with her record label, Clarkson has remained the type of girl you might see working at Orange Julius if she wasn't touring the world with multiplatinum albums. Besides her attractive normalcy, Clarkson's secret weapon remains her humongous voice, which will be wrapped around her hits, almost hits, and cherished album tracks tonight at WaMu Theater. DAVID SCHMADER

And there's always more in our complete music calendar listings.

The main page of The Vancouver Sun...

The main page of The Seattle Times...

Clearly, The Oregonian has the most interesting story of the day; clearly, The Seattle Times has the most boring story of the day. As for that baby in The Vancouver Sun, something is not right with it. If I were superstitious, and not rational and materialistic, I would read on that baby's face a future that's not very promising.

Oy.

Alarmists take note: The planet is intact after particles began smashing into each other at the Large Hadron Collider today.

For the first time, the $10 billion machine circulated two proton beams simultaneously in its 17-mile tunnel underneath the border between France and Switzerland.

This is a major step toward finding the answers to fundamental physics questions about the nature of matter in the universe, and how the world as we know it began.

One more word: It looks like the future failed to prevent this amazing experiment.

There are no tour dates currently planned for Daft Punk. The recent rumors of a Daft Punk tour are false. We would like to ensure that no fans are taken advantage of by fictitious rumors of upcoming shows.

Rom Houben has been trapped in a series of worst nightmares, including trying for 23 years to alert those around him that he was not in a coma. A new report suggests he's not alone in his experience.

In 1983, Belgian engineering student and martial arts enthusiast Houben, then 20, was in a car accident that was thought to have left him in a vegetative state. Doctors relied on the widely-used Glasgow Coma Scale, assessing his eyes, verbal, and motor responses. What they failed to notice was that Houben was actually conscious—but completely paralyzed.

"I screamed, but there was no one to hear," he says in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel. Three years ago, neurologist Steven Laureys used modern scanning techniques to discover that Houben's cerebral cortex was, in fact, functioning. (The doctor has only just now made Houben's story public.)

Now Houben is now able to communicate via specialized computer that allows him to write with slight hand movements. Here is what he wrote in an interview:

I am called Rom. I am not dead. The nurses came, they patted me, they sometimes took my hand, and I heard them say "no hope." I meditated, I dreamed my life away—it was all I could do. I don't want to blame anyone—it wouldn't do any good. But I owe my life to my family. Everyone else gave up.

I studied what happened around me as if it were a tiny piece of world drama, the bizarre peculiarities of the other patients in the common room, the entry of the doctors into my room, the gossip of the nurses who were not embarrassed to speak about their boyfriends in front of "the extinct one." That made me an expert on relationships.

This story reminds me of this movie:

h/t: Cnet.com

Two town halls are confirmed:

Monday, November 30
7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Northgate Community Center gymnasium
10510 5th Ave Northeast

Tuesday, December 1
7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center
104 17th Ave South (17th Ave. & E. Yesler Way)

A third town hall in South Seattle is tentatively schedule for December 2; more details when they're available.

After talking to McGinn about his ideas for light rail and the upcoming legislative session, I asked him what it's like to be the mayor-elect, going from a campaign fueled by phone bankers to the the mayor elect on 60th floor of the Seattle Municipal Tower. "The first day we showed up ... it felt a little lonely," McGinn says. "The office was always packed with people and had a lot of energy end excitement, and then it was just me and a few transition staff heading up to a rather sterile office space."

"Campaigns are always more intense because of the deadlines," McGinn says. In the last few weeks, McGinn has built a team of 70 ambassadors that he's tasked with reaching out to communities and neighborhoods. "It’s nice to be in situation to talk about how do we tackle the big issues? How do we organize ourselves to get the resources of government pointing in the right direction?" After months of campaigning, McGinn says, he is "enjoying being back in problem-solving mode that isn't about getting the most votes, but actually trying to create change."

People are describing the situation at Giant Magnet (SICF's new name after a re-branding campaign) as ConWorks all over again: a popular leader of a performing arts organization gets the axe for reasons the board refuses to explain.

Now another parallel—the board hires a dubious replacement.

Back in 2005, Marilyn Raichle was fired as the director of Foolproof (a nonprofit that booked speakers like Bill Clinton and Cornel West). Two years later, the organization died of debt, according to board president Sheryl Harmon, because of "years of irresponsibility and mismanagement of funds."

From that 2007 story:

"I never mismanaged funds: That implies a criminal use of money," Raichle said. "It was difficult, God knows. I was juggling." Raichle guesses the board fired her because "they felt abandoned. Mom left."

"'Mom left'?" Harmon laughed over the phone. "I don't think she understands the scope of how many people she has hurt financially. How can you continue to take money from people you know you can't pay back? We're probably close to around $400,000 of unpaid personal loans to Foolproof and Marilyn," Harmon said. "There are those of us who stayed and did the right thing by bringing Foolproof to a close rather than let it continue to take people's money."

So. Mom's back.

(More below the jump, plus the question that claws to the surface and stalks around Seattle every few years: Do we have a board problem?)

The city already maintains 74 cameras that contribute data to the city's travelers website; the additional cameras will add more data to assist drivers.

"We hope that people will, prior to making their trip, go to our travelers info system map and assess traffic conditions," Sheridan says. "If traffic moves through a variety of pathways to avoid congestion, that spreads out traffic more across the system."

The six piece band featured a synth player, a drummer, a drum pad playing / kick drum stomping percussion girl, and two guitar players. One guitar player was classic 80's pop, and the other one was Motorheady looking. Almost like Julian wanted to play with as disparate players as he could find.

At one point Julian said, “This is the best crowd we’ve had yet.”

• Blush Photo

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In contrast, christening Constantine will be a swig of euphoria. Celebrate with the masses tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. at the Daniels Recital Hall—the former First United Methodist Church—at 5th Avenue and Marion Street. U.S. District Court Judge Richard A. Jones will administer the oath. Constantine's staff promise a "reception," but they could not confirm whether there would be booze. So consider that an invitation to bring a flask.

After laying his hand on the Yellow Pages or some other anachronistic book, Constantine will lay out his plans for his first 100 days in office. Joining him will be some members of the new county executive administration. Among the staff he's named so far: Rhonda Berry, Assistant Deputy County Executive; Steve Call, Interim Budget Director; Sung Yang, Director of Government and Labor Relations; Carrie S. Cihak, Director of Strategic Initiatives; Lorrie McKay, Director of Customer Service; Frank Abe, Director of Communications; and former State Representative Fred Jarret, the Deputy County Executive. Bios on the the new county administration are after the jump.

If you want to attend the event, Abe, the new spokesman, says he recommends getting there by 3:45 p.m.

• Congrats to Kamala Saxton (pictured) and Roz Edison.

Seattle's Hawaiian-Korean taco truck Marination Mobile has been voted the winner of Good Morning America's Best Food Cart Challenge. The electorate? The viewers of Good Morning America—very few of whom, presumably, have ever eaten at Marination Mobile or any of the other three finalists (Garden State in Portland, Street Sweets in New York, and Local 647 in Delaplane, Virgina). The modern world is confounding! Still, congratulations to Marination Mobile.

Here's some G.M.A. video about the win. And you can read Dominic Holden's review of M.M. over here.

5. "You can't check e-books out from the library"

According to the NY Times, about 5,400 libraries now offer e-books, and more are signing up every day. Most library programs work like with physical books - you "check out" an e-book onto your e-reader and "check it back in" when you're finished, and only one patron at a time can "check out" an e-book while you're reading it.

And then, almost as if in retaliation, the Evergreen Review just published an incendiary post about how the e-book is the end of everything:

Heinrich Heine, the early 19th century German Jewish poet, wrote: “"Where they burn books, they will ultimately also burn people." The advent of electronic media to first position in the modern chain of Being—a place once occupied by God—and later, after the Enlightenment, by humans—is no mere 9/11 upon our cultural assumptions. It is a catastrophe of holocaustal proportions. And its endgame is the disappearance of not just books but of all things human.

But in the other direction, these people will publish your Twitter in book form for $30 or less.

...the photo on the right. You know, the troubled teenage girl with her knees pulled up to her chest, glowering at the parents who won't let her leave the house in that skirt. Because it's just too revealing. I mean, that skirt is so revealing it's practically NSFW. Let's take a closer look, the kind of look a passing straight guy might give the sign...

Um... is this really how programs for troubled teens are sold to anxious parents? By flashing—or nearly flashing—teen twat at concerned dads rushing through airports? What is a father with a sexually active teenage daughter—"out of control" means "sexually active" when we're talking about teenage girls—supposed to feel when a highly sexualized image of teenage girl catches his the eye in an airport? Concerned? Manipulated? Complicit? I mean, a dad rushing through the airport is supposed to see the girl on that sign as a symbolic stand-in for his own troubled daughter, right? So dad's eye is drawn to the ad by his own daughter's crotch (symbolically speaking). How quickly can a straight dad pivot from horny dude whose eye was caught by a flash of teenage thigh to good dad who's only eyeing the sign because he's concerned about his troubled daughter back at home? Is it instantaneous? Or does it require a conscious thought and an act of will? Or is it an entirely subconscious process?

The South Carolina State Ethics Commission combed through Gov. Mark Sanford’s records and came up with 37 ethics charges involving air travel and campaign funds.

The married governor, who went AWOL for nearly a week this past summer only to return and acknowledge he had been with his Argentinean “soul mate,” was cited by the State Ethics Commission for a number of alleged transgressions, including use of state aircraft and expensive commercial airline tickets when cheaper seats were available.

South Carolina lawmakers, some of whom have been itching to give the Republican governor the boot, have been waiting for the Ethics Commission to act. But the governor’s lawyers say the allegations are minor and technical, and predicted there won’t be any criminal charges — a decision that’s up to the state’s attorney general. A hearing on the ethics allegations will be held next year; Sanford’s term ends in January 2011.

For a fiscal conservative, Mark Sanford sure doesn't appear to care about being fiscally conservative with his taxpayers' dollars. Some of the things Sanford allegedly used state aircraft for:

—transporting a staff member from Columbia to North Myrtle Beach, and then both Sanford and the staff member back to Columbia “to participate in a personal event, receiving a haircut.”

—attending a book signing party.

—attending a birthday party for a contributor.

—a personal weekend with family members.

—attending a son’s sporting event.

—going to “the ‘soft’ opening of the Hard Rock Park.”

h/t: Wall Street Journal

Earlier in the day it seemed like anyone going to the MLS Cup final at Qwest Field last night was going to be rained on and frozen solid, but then the rain cleared and everyone wrapped themselves in the Sounders scarves they wore to matches all summer (finally in season!), even though the Sounders weren't going to be playing. The MLS Cup venue is decided months in advance, and just happened to be Seattle this year. "It's not that I want Real [Salt Lake] to win, it's that I want [LA] Galaxy to lose," a man in a Sounders scarf pronounced to a friend before it started. "I guess I'm giving LA the edge but I just want to see good soccer," another man shrouded in Sounders scarves and a Sounders hat said elsewhere. In other words, a mixed crowd, not very committed either way, except for the LA fans in a far corner of the stands—a clump of people covered in white, like they'd been snowed on. ("You'd think there would be more of them," someone said, pointing to the LA fans. "They have all the money.")

Because there was nothing on the line for Seattle, most of the 46,011 people in the crowd seemed to be watching nonchalantly, with a cool distance, except whenever there was an excuse to shout about the Sounders, like before the game when the Sounders made an appearance on the field (prompting several sad-sounding rounds of "Seaaaaaahhhtuuhhl Soooouuuunnnddders") or later on when an injured goalkeeper prompted someone in the stands to shout out for Seattle's star goalkeeper ("Let's go Sounders! Put in Kasey Keller!").

But the crowd's cool distance had nothing on Landon Donovan's cool distance. For a lot of the game, the 2009 MVP and U.S. national team forward seemed barely present (except for one beautiful assist). David Beckham didn't do much to call attention to himself either, unless you count his bright blond mohawk thing. The match went into overtime, and then a not-very-present moment on behalf of Salt Lake's Andy Williams kept him from capitalizing on a wide-open goal—"No way he didn't make that! No way!" someone in the stands shouted, because the mistake was staggering and also because, after two fruitless 15 minute blocks of overtime, the match was officially in need of an ending—so then the match had to go into penalty kickoffs. This would be only the second MLS Cup final decided on penalty kicks, USA Today pointed out. "This is a horrible way to end a game, much less a season," a friend grumbled.

So the final minutes of this final match looked a lot like that photo above—player after player taking penalty kicks while the goalkeeper stood there and guessed which way they were going to shoot (sometimes incorrectly, diving hard in the wrong direction, as in the photo). And then Landon Donovan went up for his penalty kick and—man, it's almost too painful to type. Too embarrassing. Not only did the ball not go where the goalkeeper was expecting it to, it didn't go where Donovan or the crowd or the laws of physics or God himself expected it to. Behold.

The reaction in the stands in my immediate vicinity:

Oh, Donovan! Missing the net!?!?

Unforgivable! Unforgivable! Unforgivable!

OOHHH MYYYY GAAWWD!

Choke of the century! Are you kidding me?!

After a few more penalty kicks—which were hard to keep track of, considering everyone's brains just went numb at the sight of Donovan standing in front of a goal and somehow not kicking the ball into it, and considering there was no lighted sign keeping track of the penalty kicks, just like there's never any lighted sign keeping track of add-on time—Real Salt Lake started streaming into a pile at one end of the field, jumping through the air, whipping their dreadlocks around. They'd won. The underdogs had won the MLS Cup. The stadium was suddenly full of Salt Lake partisans, or maybe just underdog partisans. Congratulations, underdogs.

Photos by Scott Maira, from Flickr pool.

I love the podcast and column and just saw you live at UBC this weekend. Loved the part about how girls come on guys' faces all the time during oral—laughed about that all night.

Anyway, I do have a question for you: I'm a hetero girl in my 20s. I love masturbating and find myself really good at it, but a lot of the time, I get nothing from hetero porn. Usually, it's because I can't stand the girls' annoying voices. So, I rely on gay porn instead, even when I'm reading erotica. I tend to go for what you gay guys call "twinks." (Who the hell is a "twink," technically speaking? Please don't tell me it's anything statuatory!) I'm not really concerned, I'm just curious: is this a common problem? I now get really intrigued when I meet gay guys in real life because I get off to so many gay men in porn. I would love to watch two twinks in reality at some point, but I'm not sure if any gay guys would ever be into that.

Twink Lover

P.S. Is your last name really Savage?

My response after the jump....

Tracklist:
King Midas Sound - Sometimes (Waiting For You/Hyperdub)
Lovejoys - All I Can Say (Reggae Vibes/Wackies)
15/16/17 - The Weather (Magic Touch/DEB)
Burial - Night Bus (Burial/Hyperdub)
Little Dragon - Twice (Little Dragon/Peacefrog)
The Dynamics - 90% of me is you (Version Excursions/Points South)
Tanya Stephens - It's A Pity (Gangsta Blues/VP)
Jacob Miller - Baby I Love You So (Who Say Jah No Dread/Greensleeves)
Gregory Isaacs - I'm Alright (Cool Down/VP)
Wayne Jarrett - Live&Love (Horace Andy Meets Naggo Morris & Wayne Jarrett/Wackies)
Sade - Lovers Rock (Lovers Rock/Epic)
Rhythm & Sound ft Lovejoy - Best Friend (With the Artists/Burial Mix)
Larry Heard - Missing dub (Theo Parrish remix) (Missing You/Track Mode)
Vincent Gallo - Lonely (When/Warp)
A.R.Kane - Madonna is with child (69/Rough Trade)
Scritti Politti - Sweetest Girl (/Rough Trade)
Lloyd Chambers - Dry Your Tears (Firehouse Revolution/Pressure Sounds)
King Midas Sound - i Dub (Dub Heavy/Hyperdub)
Scientist ft Johnny Osbourne - In Your Eyes (Wins The World Cup/Greensleeves)
King Midas Sound - Outtaspace (Slow Motion mix) (Waiting For You/Hyperdub)
Japan - Ghosts (Tin Drum/Virgin)
Kevin Shields - Ikebana (Lost In Translation s/t/Emperor norton)
King Midas Sound - One Ting (Dabrye remix) (Cool Out/Hyperdub)
Oval - Do While (94diskont/Mille Plateaux)
Thomas Koner - Kanon (Isolationism/Virgin)
My Bloody Valentine - Touched (Loveless/creation)

ht: @diemnstr via Twitter

Constantine can move quickly because he doesn't face a huge learning curve.

Unlike the dingbat they endorsed.

Check out the track "Awake" on their Myspace account. That track is representative of the dou's (James Ginzburg and Paul Purgas) general approach to sound design—severe, minimal, and architectural. But in the middle of these dust, digital, artificial, micro constructions, there sometimes appears a funky house beat. When the two meet (funky beat and micro/dubtech), warm, human feelings emanate from the most inhuman spaces imaginable.

Emptyset's list of influences:

Manuel Gottsching, DAF, Ryoji Ikeda, Robert Hood, Front 242, Mika Vainio, Liaison Dangereuse, Torsten Pröfrock, Studio One, Gary Clail, Soundhack, Vangelis, Napalm Death, Model 500, Dopplereffekt, Legowelt, Carl Craig, Sandwell District, Ash Ra Tempel, Maurizio, Vanqueur, Tangerine Dream, Anthony Shakir, BURIAL, Sun O))), Convextion, Unspecified Enemies, Chain Reaction, Clone, Deathprod, Mike Dunn, K Hand, Loscil, Errorsmith, Larry Heard, Move D, Red Planet, DJ Deeon, Mathew Jonson, Drexciya, 2562, Brian Eno, Portable, Kenny Larkin, Andy Blake, Gino Soccio, Monolake, Underground Resistance and Armando (RIP)

Carl Kasell, who has been on the air with NPR since 1975 and has brought listeners the news of joyous events such as the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and tragedies such as the 9/11 attacks in 2001, is planning to give his final newscast on Dec. 30.

Nooo! Don't go, Carl!

Um, hold on a second:

Carl, 75, will continue to serve as official judge and scorekeeper on NPR's Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me!. "I'm just changing jobs," not disappearing, says Carl.

Now that I know he's not leaving Wait Wait… Don't Tell Me!, I am okay with it. That was the upsetting part. He cracks me up when he imitates the celebrities. Last Saturday it was Sarah Palin, ha! Listen to it here.