January 2011
2 posts
December 2010
4 posts
“The bill repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell didn’t fail: The...”
– Ezra Klein
Truth. Filibuster reform now.
Bonus: Allowing clear majorities to actually implement their policies will do a great deal toward demystifying politics and engaging the average voter. (If you care about such stuff.)
Actually, I’d be in favor of just abolishing the Senate. But that...
Lemmy, wise
From an interview with The Quietus:
INTERVIEWER: Do you think there could still be anything today for kids, teenagers growing up today that would have [the same impact as rock and roll at its beginning]?
LEMMY: There will be, but we won’t like it. And that’s just as it should be.
via The Awl
November 2010
4 posts
October 2010
5 posts
“From where I sit, the system they have in the UK where you can simply sweep...”
– Matt Yglesias
Mike Myers will voice Pepé Le Pew in latest Warner... →
This is like a nightmare’s nightmare.
September 2010
2 posts
WatchI like you, Superchunk, because you seem to share my enjoyment for things that are fun.
August 2010
13 posts
Does this cartoon mean we can invoke Godwin's Law... →
natepatrin:
maura:
Please?
(via bbook)
We are at the point right now where anyone who invokes “hipsters” for any purpose whatsoever — pro- or anti-, in passing or as a high-concept article/TV show/webcomic — is perpetrating their own version of the punk rock episode of “Quincy”.
Any excuse for this:
WatchTed Leo’s new video (written and directed by one of my heroes, Tom Scharpling) goofs on those horrible jukebox musicals that tart up rock music with performing arts school vocal interpretations and jump-around-like-an-asshole choreography. An attentive fan then posted the above video, which shows a performance from the Bob Dylan musical that flopped on Broadway a year or so ago.
I had heard...
“… jazz only works if we’re trying to be free and are, in fact,...”
– from Dave Hickey’s “The Delicacy of Rock-and-Roll”, an essay that starts at an art film screening in Austin in 1967 and spirals out to propose jazz and rock-and-roll as the dual tendencies of 20th-century American art. It’s available in Air Guitar: Essays on Art &...
Reid: Forget Ground Zero -- 'The Mosque Should Be... →
What a profile in courage! What a worm.
I’ve tried really hard to keep a cool head for the past two years — to recognize that change is usually incremental, that the Senate rules make certain things impossible, that as much as I would like to see Republicans get poked in the eyes and elbowed in the ribs, it wouldn’t solve anyone’s real problems.
And I’ve tried...
"Cathy": 1976-2010 - The Awl →
“Cathy” creator Cathy Guisewite is hanging up the acks after 34 years of trying to bring The Real Life Of A (Neurotic) Single Lady (Who Is Surrounded By Horrible People) to the funny pages.
Goodbye, Cathy. Your struggles in the office and the department store dressing room were like musty time capsules to the early ’80s, but you are survived by many comic strips who reek of...
barthel:
Spin-offs I would watch:
A fake talk show, a la Larry Sanders or Alan Partridge, hosted by Pete Campbell.
A million times yes to this.
“Tonight, we’re quite pleased to bring you a revealing conversation with Walter Matthau and music by the radiant Petula Clark. I really think it’s going to be a good show, don’t you?”
Yesterday Amy reintroduced me to Very Bad Poetry, a slim anthology that makes excellent toilet reading for highbrows. Grotesque sentimentality, crashing bathos, dead-end stylistic exercises — it’s all there.
In particular, there’s one poem by James Whitcomb Riley (the “Hoosier Poet”, the editors helpfully inform) that is bad enough to shear the top of your head off....
Watch(NSFW) Man, this is practically a Tim & Eric video.
I love how much fun Nick Cave is having these days. He’s expert at goofing on the dark, apocalyptic vibe he’s expected to deliver, while still actually delivering it with incredible authority. The last two albums have been nimble and deft even while they’ve been grinding and heavy.
July 2010
6 posts
“There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof...”
– Herbert Spencer (hat tip to Glenn Kenny)
Folkloric Sources of Metal
Viking Metal
Pirate Metal
Klingon Metal
This morning I had not even thought to ask whether Klingon Metal exists. By the night, I had not only learned to ask but had my answer back—“yes.”
In this manner, receiving small blessings, we persevere.
Also, let’s watch that Chris Dane Owens video again:
Ahhhhh…..
“There’s a kind of experience I think every music fan has had. I call it...”
– From Tom Ewing’s Poptimist column. I love this concept of “bad ears”, which I’ve experienced more times that I can count. “Bad eyes” too, for movies. Everything we love, like it or not, is a kind of social bargaining chip, and it’s an amazing experience when...
June 2010
5 posts
Ray Stevens scores one of his biggest-ever hits... →
Congratulations, American conservatives: you can count Ray Stevens as one of your own. Hold you head high, because the streak is on your team.
If you were to put together a playlist of proudly conservative recording artists, would there be anything listenable on it — besides a handful of country singers, of course?
May 2010
9 posts
Space Jam Based On Sacred Mayan Text? - Chicagoist →
Consciously or unconsciously, the film’s writers have developed a narrative in which a pair of heroes (Bugs Bunny and Michael Jordan) 1) are summoned to play a high-stakes underworld ball-game against a variety of frightening villains, 2) manage to defeat those villains through the heroes’ summoning of extra-human ability, and 3) ascend from the underworld with a glowing orb, all of...
“It’s O.K. to head out for wonderful, but on your way to wonderful you’re going...”
– Bill Withers (via putthison)
The most irritating critical pose is acting as though something is being “forced on” you just because:
It exists.
Other people seem to like it.
You can try to convince them to stop liking it, if you want. But throwing a tantrum about it, as though everything in the world requires your permission to exist, is very stupid.
“Take these as part-time feelings, and they might actually make you a healthier...”
– Another humane, insightful column from Nitsuh Abebe about the ways we use pop to communicate. He is one of those rare critics who can make calmness and fairness exciting — I can’t recall him ever once taking a cheap shot or dismissing something out of hand.
Pitchfork: Why We Fight #3
