PEORIA POST-METAL CREW FACES ITS NEUROSES

WHY YOU SHOULD CARE

Since 2002 Minsk have built 10-minute-plus psychedelic doom epics out of tribal rhythms and sprawling melodies. Their bassist, Sanford Parker (late of Buried at Sea), has not only recorded each of the group’s major releases but also made a name for himself producing the likes of Nachtmys-tium. Pelican, and Brutal Truth. Still, despite Parker’s presence behind the mixing boards, frontman Christopher Bennett says Minsk’s third full-length, With Echoes in the Move­ment of Stone (Relapse), was a collaboration. “I think that’s why we work well,” he says. “The rest of us work on the really basic struc­tures of the songs, and Sanford makes them into what they are in the end.”

OPS. UH-OH. OH WELL.

Don’t worry. I haven’t decided to make all of my editor’s letters start with crappy Kurt Vonnegut rip-offs. Just this one. Why? Because among that great author’s many skills was a knack for humorously relating the surprising speed with which people, cities, civilizations, and even planets or galaxies can be extinguished without warning, without do-overs, without the universe-at-large stopping to mourn. Nothing, it turns out, is more banal than ceasing to be when you least expect it.

ROCK YOUR WORLD

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What’s the protocol for inserting yourself into your partner?

What’s the protocol for inserting yourself into your partner? Do you do it? Does she?
I wouldn’t worry too much. What ever you might lack in skill you more than make up for in weirdness. Protocol dictates that rank precedes gender, so if your intended holds a title higher than American Apparel sales associate, simply say, “Madam Chancellor, may I present My Erection?” to which she will reply, “How do you do?” Attendees then rise for the national anthem, Senator Feinstein makes opening remarks, there is a canon salute, and Aaron Neville sings “Amazing Grace.” Then, and only then, can insertion commence. At least that’s how they do it where I come from. However, Robert J. Rubel, author of the indispensable Master/ Slave Relations: Handbook of Theory and Practice, as well as 2007s Squirms, Screams and Squirts: Going from Great Sex to Extraordinary Sex (because the title A Dance to the Music of Time was already taken), disagrees.

RULE: FILL THE FRAME

Move closer, zoom in tighter. It’s one of the first photography rules we’re told. The idea is to make sure every part of the picture contains something “important” or “interesting.” While this is often good advice, artistically there are lots of reasons to break this rule and to leave what’s called negative space in the photo frame. This can be a powerful tool that makes your center of interest stand out even more. Here are three situations in which you can un-fill the frame.

1 Wide areas of color: Fill the frame—but fill it with sky color, as in this photo. Leaving space here provides a mix of colors for the eye to explore, with the rock serving as a compositional point for the eye to rest upon.

FLYING ABOVE THECLOUDS

Why Delta looks so strong

For all the gloom hanging over U.S. airlines, one of them should come through the turmoil quite well: Delta Air Lines. Thanks to its 2008 merger with Northwest Airlines, the Atlanta-based carrier boasts a strong balance sheet as well as a route structure that makes it a force from Stockholm to St. Paul to Shanghai.

F-Stop the INSANITY

Aperture is a simple numbers game

When we take pictures, we want to think visually—who cares about arcane numbers and inverse reciprocal mathematics? But some simple guidelines get results. If you understand arithmetic, you can grasp how aperture (f-stop) affects photos.

Get off the program

First, take control by using aperture-priority mode rather than program or auto. On most DSLRs, it’s on a mode dial and designated by the letter A or Av. You can now set the f-stop with the camera’s command wheel. A few current models and many older ones let you set aperture on a lens ring.

Can a camera phone be a camera?

Real photographers don’t use cell phones to shoot pictures, right? Well, to hear Sony Ericsson tell it, that kind of thinking is going the way of film. The company’s new C905 is billed as “the phone for the photographer in you,” a pocket-sized multi tasker packing “all the functions you need for perfect pictures.”

At first glance, it’s tough to tell which is which. After all, the phone has “Cyber-shot” engraved in the metal door that slides over the lens. And “8.1 megapixels” is printed next to the shutter button, directly across from the rocker switch for zooming in and out. Only when you look at the back is it clear that this isn’t a straight-up camera: Its LCD is longer and narrower than a typical digicam’s, and it has—duh!—telephone buttons.