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From The Desk Of We Are Scientists: The Apple iPad

We Are Scientists—the duo of vocalist/guitarist Keith Murray and bassist/vocalist Chris Cain—are known for the oblique humor and intelligence that they bring to their music, but a question about their sharp mental acuity produces gales of laughter. “I don’t believe brains or wit are particularly helpful, or necessary, in pop music,” Murray says, still chuckling. “If we intended our appeal to be narrow and excessively insular, those qualities might be good for us, but nobody likes a smartass.” Despite this protestation, the songs on the band’s new LP, TV En Français (Dine Alone), are brimming over with wry humor and skewed insights into the state of modern romance. TV En Français was recorded with the help of producer Chris Coady (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV On The Radio), who helped give the album a polished, expansive sound. Cain will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new feature on the band.

IPad

Cain: You’ve heard of the Apple iPad and probably even have a friend or two who’ve seen one. Maybe you yourself were even in a train station or an airport at the same time as an iPad, though you didn’t realize it. (Statistics suggest this is surprisingly likely.) Indeed, it’s not impossible that … oh, forget it! Of course you own an iPad—at least one! But here’s the question: Do you really appreciate it? Are you even using it correctly?

The iPad makes a perfect table. Flat, solid (weighty) and dimensioned just right for scribbling notes on, filling out customs forms on, serving a mug of coffee or beer on, the iPad could successfully have been marketed as the first truly mobile table. Speaking of its weightiness (solid but not what you’d ever call “heavy”), we recently used an iPad to deftly replace a golden idol that had been sitting for hundreds of years on what we correctly intuited was a pressure plate, a pressure plate doubtless connected to some kind of fatal booby trap! We lost the iPad, of course—our 17th—but few would question the trade.

You know the scene in the movie where the soldier takes a bullet in the heart, but then it turns out the bullet was blocked by a small Bible he always keeps in his breast pocket, out of devotion to God? Or it was blocked by his lucky lighter, which belonged to his dad, whom he thinks about every time he uses it (to light beautiful women’s cigarettes, because he himself does not smoke)? How many iPad Minis do you think we’ve lost in this exact manner? The answer is six.

People regularly underestimate the iPad’s ruggedness. It may not be built to take a bullet, but next time you’re at a restaurant and the table has a wobble, don’t be afraid to shove it under the lopsided leg. (Side benefit: This shows your dinner companion you’re not fussy.)

We could, and probably will, write a book full of The Thousand Best Uses For Your iPad, None Of Which Requires Turning It On. Until we do, be brave! Get your hands, and your iPad, dirty! And wet! Melt them in extreme heat! (Not your hands.) If you’re spending all of your iPad time tapping and swiping at a backlit screen, you’re missing the big picture.