NYEPLAK

The Hanging Stars Over The Silvery Lake Reviewed by Nathan Ford Ive been following the progress of Londons Hanging Stars with great interest via their first two 7"s (reviewed here and here), and am pleased to report that their first full length (also released by wonderful Indie label The Great Pop Supplement) more than lives up to the promise of those singles. And for those who missed those long out of print singles, their three best tracks are reprised here. This review is rather late in the game as "Over The Silvery Lake" has been out for a few months now, so apologies to both the band, and you dear reader, but if I may rely on a somewhat tired cliche, some things are worth waiting for, and "Over The Silvery Lake" is certainly getting better with age. Partially recorded and mixed in Los Angeles by Byrds obssessive Rob Campanella (of The Quarter After), it sounds like the band soaked up a lot of sunshine while they were there. How else to explain such lush, su...

Prescriptions Movie Stars Our Children Ive been thinking about writing this article for a few weeks now. And then yesterday I heard the news of the Illinois Campus shooting so I had to write it. A few weeks before Heath Ledgers death I was in Hollywood on a video shoot. I met up with some friends who wanted me to take the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) tour with them. For those of you (and I was among you) who hadnt heard of this organization, the CCHR was started in 1969 by The Church of Scientology. Now before you either dig in or turn away from that controversial subject let me just say that it was an extremely enlightening and frightening exhibit that left a very strong impression on me. We walked from room to room viewing documentaries on the history of the alliance between the pharmaceutical companies and the psychiatric profession. Each room was designed like a set (this was Hollywood) starting with the lobotomies, shock treatments and torture they performed on orph...

Rabbi Maimonides and the stars As the fame of Rabbi Moshe Maimonides (1135-1204) spread among Sephardi Jews from Egypt all teh way to Spain in the west and to Yemen in the east he began to receive questions on Astrology. Rambam, as he is also known, rejected such questions and considered ridiculous the idea that planets and constellations could affect human destiny. Maimonides was a highly intelligent man, somewhere there among other Jewish geniuses like Marx, Einstein and Freud, and as such a genuine rationalist and moralist. This fundamental approach to reality is seen in the way he handles the relationship between Torah and science of his time in The Guide to the Perplexed :: scientific proof, logic and evidence are decisive in correct Philosophy. He does not deny the significance of Divine Revelation so essential to Judaism but sees it as additional information that completes the picture. Aristotelian geocentric universe The second book of the Guide begins with the exposition of th...