Deedlecast

Ancient yet modern, inviting yet forbidding, well studied yet mysterious, our planet's largest continent is a a tapestry of contrasts and contradictions, sewn together with hidden harmonies and unexpected ideas.  This week, a report from Deedlecast's Asia Bureau provides a glimpse of where the sweeping Asian epic has been and where it is going.  

Just in time for cold and flu season, DJDeedle's gone viral. Unlike those nasty bugs, you'll want to catch this virus, particularly because the infectious beat of Alexander Fog's "H1N1" gets caught up in DJDeedle's music masher versus Mint Royale's "Sexiest Man In Jamaica;" then, like any good virus, returns again later as a new strain with other virulently catchy and irresistible sounds. 

Remember to get a flu shot.  But this week's Deedlecast is a phage you won't want to miss. 

Like art, music has cycles, particularly pop music.  No matter what era a pop tune belongs, it comes around again and again, reborn, reworked or just ripped off and recycled.  The secret of pop art is taking cliché, iconic, or obvious subjects and transforming them into something new, vibrant, and relevant.  This week, DJDeedle applies the pop art method to pop music, taking some of those tired and overworked sounds from the pop cycle, and giving them new meaning.

Some say it's the not the destination that counts, but the journey.  With air transportation the way it is these days -- cramped, uncomfortable, rude, humiliating -- it really has become almost impossible to enjoy the journey.  This week, with the right inflight entertainment, the journey is a delight. 

So sit back, put the headphones on (drowning out the crying baby noise), pretend you have leg room, ignore the kid kicking the back of your 17.2 inch wide middle seat, forget how much you paid for that crappy seat, close your eyes, and enjoy the ride.

A reminder, while flying Deedlecast Airlines, federal law requires that you obey all DJDeedle's instructions!  So, for the duration of this flight, forget the hassles of air travel, the delays, the cancellations, the missed connections, and just enjoy the "Inflight Entertainment."

This week, a variety of rhythms, from italo to cumbia, to samba, marengue, mambo, tango, and funk.  Bursting with flavor, this week's Deedlecast keeps the rhythms moving and your breath minty fresh.

Don't touch that dial! There's no need, because this week DJDeedle has scanned all the frequencies, pulled the best tunes, and infused them with energy.  The radio spectrum may never be the same.

In our increasingly computerized and automated world, we humans may find ourselves wondering about our role: are we the masters of our technology? Have smarter, faster machines bested us, and made us obsolete; or worse yet - made us slaves to our very inventions.  

This week, @DJDeedle explores this tension between man and his technology. Is it really true that machines merely do the work, while people can think? Are there things that man can do that machines will never match? Or will man's ingenuity get the best of him?

If it exists, alien life is most likely, well, very alien.  That means that it is probably very different than life as we know it here on Earth.  This week, Earthly and unearthly sounds meet, harmonize, and peacefully co-exist, creating a new musical genome.

Asteroids are chunks of rock and debris left over from the formation of our solar system.  Occasionally, some of these space rocks bump into each other, sending them spinning off at incredible speed.  Two such wandering rocks, both around 10 meters in diameter, were recently discovered to be on trajectories that pass  close to Earth.  Though both are relatively small, and have very little chance of hitting the Earth, they'd make quite a splash if they did.  

This week on Deedlecast, heavy metal and complex molecules hurtle in with great force and effect.  Brace for impact. This could be a sustained barrage.  

The space shuttle, that icon of American space ingenuity, is scheduled to serve its final mission early next year.  Known officially as the Space Transportation System (STS), the missions have been more or less sequentially numbered from the first launch on April 12, 1981.  

Though the final shuttle mission has not been set in stone, NASA's latest suggests it will be STS-134.