January 2009
48 posts
The Famous Fingers Were Live, but Their Sound Was... →
This is particularly interesting to me given Aretha’s noted dissatisfaction with her performance — surely the cello and violin could not possibly stay tuned, but why then the trust in Franklin’s voice? The voice is, like the woodwinds, an imperfect and very physical instrument, just as vulnerable to climate as any Stradivarius…
Third Eye Blind, “Motorcycle Drive...
My Thesis Advisor is Patently More Fun Than Yours
Me: So, this graduate student I don't know invited me to take part a Finnegan's Wake reading group... I don't know if it's legit.
EB: As someone who has to approve all graduate activities group funding, I've never heard of it... so it's not.
Me: You don't need funding to read Finnegan's Wake...
EB: But how else will you get the drugs?
"So, do you know what you're doing next y---"
I don’t.
Joe Dassin, “Les Champs-Élysées”
As...
In that vein… “Sleep the Clock...
“Nothing is ours except time.”
– A snippet of wallpaper at 459
“Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous...”
– V. Woolf, fr. “Modern Fiction” (for Meg)
Psapp, “The Words”
REGARDING letters received and not, it's time for...
The Format, “I’m Only Sleeping”...
STOP PLAYING THE COQUETTE.
Ella Fitzgerald, “Lullaby of...
I don't know if I can spend an entire semester on...
Tokyo Police Club, “Be Good” (RAC...
Beck, “Send a Message to Her”
Too bad...
Segway inventor wants to know: When should I quit?... →
I have had burning hatred for Segways and Dean Kamen since my time in FIRST during high school. Segways have NO practical consumer value - I grant that they do make sense for cops - and encourage our society’s increasingly sedentary lifestyle. I harbor a quietly burning rage that flares up whenever I see a man walking his dog on his Segway. Damn CNN for the misleading headline - I was...
Beirut, “Elephant Gun”
National Endowment for the Arts Report Finds... →
This trend would be much more cheering were it not for the massive financial hemorrhages of such reputable publishing houses as FS&G. Unfortunately, NYT, the financial crisis isn’t going to save the writer’s craft wholesale. I just can’t wait for the increase of mediocre recession-escapist lit! (“Rec esc lit” does have a certain inner rhyme, but that...
Neutral Milk Hotel - “Holland, 1945”
“NE ME LIBÈRE PAS; JE M’EN CHARGE”
– My new motto. Anonymous Situationist graffiti, May ‘68. (“Don’t liberate me - I’ll take care of that.”)
Maya May Have Caused Civilization-Ending Climate... →
Can you guess what might be the fruits of Al Gore and Harrison Ford qua Indiana Jones getting together to make an archaeology thriller admonishing civilisation for its senseless environmental opportunism? My guess is PURE GOLD.
P.S. God, I love archaeology.
“I have a need of wilder, crueler waves;
They sicken of the calm, who knew the...”
– Dorothy Parker, fr. “Fair Weather”