Kanye on Letterman looking EXACTLY like Axel Foley circa 1984, mini-fro mullet included.
I guess technically Eddie Murphy wore the mini-fro mullet in The Golden Child, but still...
Monday, November 24, 2008
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Holy Fuck watch this!
Follow this link then meet me back here.
That was Sophie Muller's live music video for The Raconteurs. It's awesome, approaching transcendent. Also, how brutally kick ass is Jack White's guitar playing? About as kick ass as what he did to stab
It's another example of why live music is best captured like a documentary, a collection of cool little moments within the broader performance. For instance, there's a moment amidst White's crazy nasty solo when he pauses and kind of smirks and mouths the word "whoa" at Brendon Benson. American late night TV sucks at producing live music. It always looks boring and lame. British talk shows do a much better job...
The Kills on Jules Allison
...as opposed to this which is a great performance that was directed in the safe, old fashioned customs of every American late night TV show that has ever existed with the occassional exception of Jimmy Kimmel.
Robyn on Letterman
Feist on Kimmel
On the topic of Feist and American late night TV's crumby looking live music, there's this performance that is one of my favorites. Of course it was produced in France.
She punches her guitar.
That was Sophie Muller's live music video for The Raconteurs. It's awesome, approaching transcendent. Also, how brutally kick ass is Jack White's guitar playing? About as kick ass as what he did to stab
It's another example of why live music is best captured like a documentary, a collection of cool little moments within the broader performance. For instance, there's a moment amidst White's crazy nasty solo when he pauses and kind of smirks and mouths the word "whoa" at Brendon Benson. American late night TV sucks at producing live music. It always looks boring and lame. British talk shows do a much better job...
The Kills on Jules Allison
...as opposed to this which is a great performance that was directed in the safe, old fashioned customs of every American late night TV show that has ever existed with the occassional exception of Jimmy Kimmel.
Robyn on Letterman
Feist on Kimmel
On the topic of Feist and American late night TV's crumby looking live music, there's this performance that is one of my favorites. Of course it was produced in France.
She punches her guitar.
The Perfect Conversation
Was riding the fung wah back to NYC from Boston, reading Hemingway, not in a wannabe literary way, just reading Hemingway and came across the following passage:
"I want to be useful and a good partner."
"You are. You won't mind if I get restless and mix it up with being lonsome?"
"No. We'll take good care of each other and have fun. We can have a lovely time."
"All right. We'll start to have it now."
"I've been having it all the time."
I hope proposing marriage goes something like this.
"I want to be useful and a good partner."
"You are. You won't mind if I get restless and mix it up with being lonsome?"
"No. We'll take good care of each other and have fun. We can have a lovely time."
"All right. We'll start to have it now."
"I've been having it all the time."
I hope proposing marriage goes something like this.
This is something I made
This was born out of me reading a lot of New York-centric magazines and blogs. I found that I couldn't get away from this word hipster but that its buzziness as a term seemed to attract people's interest, including my own. You hear it conversationally a lot too of course, but its use in legit pieces of journalism really says something about the word's functionality. For me it's more annoying to hear the term hipster than I could ever possibly be annoyed at a hipster or hipsters in general. It's annoying because the connotation is usually so spiteful. People hate hipsters. Yet in the census survey of life no one checks the hipster box. Hipsters only exist in the eye of the beholder. So Gavin McInnes is exactly right when he says that the word hipster says more about the person saying it. This truth is made even more interesting by the fact that the word itself has trouble finding an agreed upon meaning. What we have is a word with no clear meaning that confers a lot of meaning about the user (in this case who he/she considers to be a hipster). Another good point Gavin made - a point that was sacrificed during editing - is that all too often, identifying a hipster is like admitting you think that person is cooler than you. BUT interestingly enough a lot of the people in this video described a hipster as someone they consider to be much UNCOOLER than themselves, ie. a poseur. To add even more to the interesting column, 3 different people compared the word hipster to the N-word. Can you believe that? Is it crazy that I think these people aren't completely crazy?
To be fair, one of these people was Mr. McInnes who said that banning a word or having a ridiculous symbolic funeral for it just gives the word more weight. He also said that analyzing it and debating it is pointless and stupid, to which I replied that some of us wouldn't have jobs if we weren't allowed to. I was talking about myself but I think he thought I was talking about him.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Thumbs Up America!
Thumbs Up is my favorite show to come out of the generally sucky world of serialized web video. It's social anthropology channeled through the vessel of oddball truth that is David Choe. It's great viewing for anyone interested in America. Is it Toquevillian? I don't know, but it's good. It reminds me of different times, which is to say it reminds me of a time when I didn't live in NYC, which is a bubble and not nearly as racist as the rest of the country. Also, I'd bet per capita way fewer people get punched in the face in New York than in the rest of the country.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
How many kids do you think will be named Barack in the next year?
My Obama victory celebration took place on Bedford Ave. in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The people took it to the streets and it was belly-warming, especially considering this is a crowd of people constantly derided for their feigned apathy and supposed ironic distance from genuine enthusiasm. I figured similar celebrations were going on all over the country and the rest of the world. But being isolated in a young, drunk and very liberal neighborhood of NYC, I wondered aloud what the scene was like in Lawrence, Kansas.
Lawrence, KS celebrates Obama victory
Granted, Lawrence is young, drunk, and (relatively) liberal too, but still, it's like a belly full of flapjacks. No word yet on Topekans taking to the street.
*Nov. 10th addition --> See what I'm saying:
Barack Babies
Monday, November 3, 2008
The Jerkiest Letter in the World
Dear You,
Do you know what solipsism means? It’s ok, look it up. We’ll wait.
Oh, hey! You’re back. What took so long, dummy? We were talking about you while you were gone.
If your wikipedia search (snicker) was successful you are probably very confused by the whole thing. Nevermind. People smarter than you all agree that solipsism is a preoccupation with one’s own feelings, desires, and perspectives. You might think that solipsism would be a good trait to possess. However, as usual, you’d be wrong.
“What’s so wrong with being concerned with my feelings?” you might ask in a whiny voice. Well, nothing in principle. However, because you are a selfish, deluded human being that has hornswoggled yourself into thinking you aren’t miserable and that you don’t hate yourself, your solipsism is a problem. Don’t take my word for it. Many scholarly texts say as much*.
So now you’re thinking, “Whatever. I may be solipsistic, but I’m not selfish. It’s healthy to believe that my way of thinking is OK and that I’m a good person.”
Riiiight. And let me guess, you want to continue living your life this way. And you want to teach your children the same values. And you’re thinking this is the one sure path to self-actualization sans narcissism (a combination so rare you might not know it existed if not for me).
Once again, wrong as raising a baby out of wedlock.
You’re just another Raskolnikov who thought you were special, that the world owes you something. Simply another self-absorbed also-ran with an over-reliance on your own way of seeing and too few hyphens, bashing in old ladies’ heads with a hammer for no good reason. Way to go.
Who’s Raskolnikov? Oh that’s right, my bad; you read the web not books.
Sincerely,
Me
*The Problem of Self Over Time suggests that as society has become industrialized, an individual’s energy and resources have become freed from the basic needs of physical survival, allowing us to be concerned with “personal fulfillment” and related nonsense. The problem is that emotional and psychological needs are much harder met than physical needs. This, then, inevitably leads to you dating and eventually marrying that girl you started hooking up with who you didn’t initially want to start dating, but who you continued having sex with until someone better came along, but no one did.
Do you know what solipsism means? It’s ok, look it up. We’ll wait.
Oh, hey! You’re back. What took so long, dummy? We were talking about you while you were gone.
If your wikipedia search (snicker) was successful you are probably very confused by the whole thing. Nevermind. People smarter than you all agree that solipsism is a preoccupation with one’s own feelings, desires, and perspectives. You might think that solipsism would be a good trait to possess. However, as usual, you’d be wrong.
“What’s so wrong with being concerned with my feelings?” you might ask in a whiny voice. Well, nothing in principle. However, because you are a selfish, deluded human being that has hornswoggled yourself into thinking you aren’t miserable and that you don’t hate yourself, your solipsism is a problem. Don’t take my word for it. Many scholarly texts say as much*.
So now you’re thinking, “Whatever. I may be solipsistic, but I’m not selfish. It’s healthy to believe that my way of thinking is OK and that I’m a good person.”
Riiiight. And let me guess, you want to continue living your life this way. And you want to teach your children the same values. And you’re thinking this is the one sure path to self-actualization sans narcissism (a combination so rare you might not know it existed if not for me).
Once again, wrong as raising a baby out of wedlock.
You’re just another Raskolnikov who thought you were special, that the world owes you something. Simply another self-absorbed also-ran with an over-reliance on your own way of seeing and too few hyphens, bashing in old ladies’ heads with a hammer for no good reason. Way to go.
Who’s Raskolnikov? Oh that’s right, my bad; you read the web not books.
Sincerely,
Me
*The Problem of Self Over Time suggests that as society has become industrialized, an individual’s energy and resources have become freed from the basic needs of physical survival, allowing us to be concerned with “personal fulfillment” and related nonsense. The problem is that emotional and psychological needs are much harder met than physical needs. This, then, inevitably leads to you dating and eventually marrying that girl you started hooking up with who you didn’t initially want to start dating, but who you continued having sex with until someone better came along, but no one did.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
The Bees
I've been feeling this vid for a while, but now that I have a blog I'll post it on my blog. It's so good, I sit around all insecure thinking "What will my 'Listening Man' be?"
It also reminds me of something I saw scribbled above the john at hi-fi, a bar in the e. village: "No matter how pretty she is someone somewhere is sick of her shit."
The Bees - Listening Man
Directed by Dominic Leung who at one time worked with music video producing/directing team Hammer and Tongs.
excellent interview with Leung.
It also reminds me of something I saw scribbled above the john at hi-fi, a bar in the e. village: "No matter how pretty she is someone somewhere is sick of her shit."
The Bees - Listening Man
Directed by Dominic Leung who at one time worked with music video producing/directing team Hammer and Tongs.
excellent interview with Leung.
This blog is about hobos.
"Train of thought". It's a nice little turn of phrase that got sucked into the lexicon. We hear it all the time without appreciating how apt the metaphor is. Somebody smart came up with that line; probably some 1890s newspaperman. The way our thoughts seem to follow one another in some organic sequential forward motion is fo sho like a train. With your thoughts chugging along one after the other, you go from thinking about wanting to drink a coke, to thinking about cocaine, and then you think about Len Bias and then you think about Boston and then you think about college and then you're thinking of your ex wife again. Maybe there are 12 carloads in a row of coal, and then you have several cars full of gravel after that followed by wheat and then hobos. So it's a good metaphor.
"Balloon of the mind" doesn't make it into as many conversations, but it's just as apt a metaphor as "train of thought". Both phrases attach concrete, easily comprehensible imagery to the abstract notion of thinking. Balloon of the mind comes from a W.B. Yeats poem about trying to wrangle the ornery balloon of the mind into it's shed. Maybe it's a mixed metaphor because not only does he compare fluid thought to the flight of a balloon in the wind, but also compares the balloon to something you'd put in a shed, like a Model T. In any case, it's a great metaphor about getting your hands to channel the raw buoyancy of your free flowing thoughts. It's about the effort of writing. But I think anyone can relate to the frustration of not being able to reliably focus their mental energy on productive behavior. The good thing about all this is that Yeats seems to have been able to wrangle that balloon into its shed on more than a few occasions. He won a Pulitzer. So this blog is about me and my balloon. It's also about those hobos that stowaway on trains of thought; getting a free ride, jamming on harmonica and sardines, pissing in jugs. I can do metaphors too.
"Balloon of the mind" doesn't make it into as many conversations, but it's just as apt a metaphor as "train of thought". Both phrases attach concrete, easily comprehensible imagery to the abstract notion of thinking. Balloon of the mind comes from a W.B. Yeats poem about trying to wrangle the ornery balloon of the mind into it's shed. Maybe it's a mixed metaphor because not only does he compare fluid thought to the flight of a balloon in the wind, but also compares the balloon to something you'd put in a shed, like a Model T. In any case, it's a great metaphor about getting your hands to channel the raw buoyancy of your free flowing thoughts. It's about the effort of writing. But I think anyone can relate to the frustration of not being able to reliably focus their mental energy on productive behavior. The good thing about all this is that Yeats seems to have been able to wrangle that balloon into its shed on more than a few occasions. He won a Pulitzer. So this blog is about me and my balloon. It's also about those hobos that stowaway on trains of thought; getting a free ride, jamming on harmonica and sardines, pissing in jugs. I can do metaphors too.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Good story
I'm digging Vivian Girls. Music blogs are slurping them these days with good reason. Aside from their music they have a good story: 3 chicks who play lo-fi, harmony heavy indie pop that also happens to throwback to Winehouse progenitor 60's girl groups. That's a good melange.
Vivian Girls - I'll Tell the World
They're super jangly.
Another part of their story is their name. It's a reference to the mythology depicted in the artwork of "outsider" artist Henry Darger, whose notoriety is in itself the result of a good story. Darger was a lonely old janitor whose landlord discovered his artwork only after Darger had passed away. The drawings and paintings depicted a thoroughly imagined fantasy land that resembled a cross between Disney and David Lynch.
The heroes of this crazy weird violent fairy tale were the Vivian girls, perfect looking little adolescent white girls in short dresses. It's probably pretty pedaphilic but nonetheless the artworld slurped this shit up in the same way that blogs are now jocking Vivian Girls. With good reason.
for more henry darger more Henry Darger
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