A Bit More Detail

• Centauri Dreams extends further consideration the roles that artificial intelligences might play in interstellar exploration.


• D-Brief notes that the genes associated with being a night owl also seem to be associated with poor mental health outcomes.


• Far Outliers looks at the lifeboat system created on the upper Yangtze in the late 19th century.


• Kashmir Hill, writing at Gizmodo, notes how blocking Google from her phone left her online experience crippled.


• Imageo notes that, even if halted, global warming still means that many glaciers well melt as they respond to temperature changes.


• JSTOR Daily looks at the racism that permeated ads in 19th century North America.


• Language Hat looks at how some Turkish-speaking Christians transcribed the Turkish language in the Greek alphabet.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how utterly ineffective the Trump Administration's new refugee waiver system actually is.


• The LRB Blog looks at the film and theatre career of Lorenza Mazetti.


• Marginal Revolution notes, in passing, the import of being a YouTube celebrity.


• Molly Crabapple at the NYR Daily writes about the work of the New Sanctuary coalition, which among other things waits with refugees in court as they face their hearings.


• The Speed River Journal's Van Waffle looks for traces of the elusive muskrat.


• Towleroad shares footage of New Order performing the early song "Ceremony" in 1981.


• Transit Toronto notes that Metrolinx now has an app for Presto up!


• At Vintage Space, Amy Shira Teitel looks at the Soviet Moon exploration program in 1969.


• Window on Eurasia notes the new pressures being placed by rising Islamism and instability in Afghanistan upon Turkmenistan.


• Arnold Zwicky considers, briefly, the little is known about the lives of 1980s gay porn stars Greg Patton and Bobby Pyron. How did they lead their lives?

Before they recorded their classic 1983 album Power Corruption & Lies, New Order made an extended trip to New York and absorbed some of the city’s more upbeat sounds into their own morose and world-weary music. Latin salsa, 12” remix culture and the electronic beats they heard in nightclubs like Danceteria and the Roxy were obvious inspirations for the music they would soon come to make.

But at the time this was videotaped—live at the Ukrainian National Home in New York’s East Village on November 18, 1981—New Order were still largely Joy Division minus Ian Curtis, a post punk band, not the electronic dance quartet they would soon become. It’s a fascinating document of the group during what is perhaps the least documented era of their long career. As I would personally chose Movement over anything else in their catalog, this was a real treat to watch.

Low lights, the intense musicians saying almost nothing to the audience, a concert held in a hot sweaty dance hall—there’s an extremely underground quality to this show.

How does it feel
To treat me like you do
When you've laid your hands upon me
And told me who you are

I thought I was mistaken
I thought I heard your words
Tell me how do I feel
Tell me now how do I feel

Those who came before me
Lived through their vocations
From the past until completion
They will turn away no more

And I still find it so hard
To say what I need to say
But I'm quite sure that youll tell me
Just how I should feel today

I see a ship in the harbor
I can and shall obey
But if it wasnt for your misfortunes
I'd be a heavenly person today

As with many of New Order's songs, the title has no relationship with the lyrics, which in turn have been the subject of much debate. Although Bernard Sumner never publicly discusses his lyrics, many people have surmised that "Blue Monday" concerns the suicide of Joy Division vocalist Ian Curtis and the effect it had on his former bandmates. However, comparisons with the lyrics and the aftereffects of cocaine have also been made, which would fit in with the potentially drug related themes of many other New Order tracks. (Another legend has it that the band was on LSD while recording it, and after they finished the producers took them to a café to finish out their tripping while they went back and cleaned it up.) The song's references to a ship in the harbour, a beach (the name of the original releases B-Side) as well as other lyrics that could concern war together with the fact that more overt military imagery is used in a number of other New Order songs (such as the contemporaneous "We All Stand"), has also raised suggestions that the song is a reference to the Falklands War of 1982. Indeed, the video to the original 1983 release of the song used many clips of military vehicles, albeit in a warped manner, such as that of a Harrier Jump Jet, a plane which featured heavily in the conflict.