pop culture number
I was thinking the other night about common culture and the people we know who overlap. I mean this in the most superficial sense; not people we know who are close to us, or mean something tangible in our lives. Rather, the constant bombardment of celebrity figures — sports, television, movies, music — and the infinite swirl of sub-sections. My question was, how many people do we know this way? What is the number? The people who when I say Beyoncé, you know what I’m talking about? There must be thousands.
Subway Sing-A-Long
Musicians in a Times Square subway station convince waiting commuters to sing along with the end of Hey Jude.
Our New National Pastime Is Reviewing Avatar
Even Slavoj Zizek gave his critique:
Cameron’s superficial Hollywood Marxism (his crude privileging of the lower classes and caricatural depiction of the cruel egotism of the rich) should not deceive us. Beneath this sympathy for the poor lies a reactionary myth, first fully deployed by Rudyard Kipling’s Captains Courageous. It concerns a young rich person in crisis who gets his (or her) vitality estored through brief intimate contact with the full-blooded life of the poor. What lurks behind the compassion for the poor is their vampiric exploitation.
In Cameron’s defense, after District 9, every Sci-Fi film narrative is sure to pale in comparison. His was just the more glaring of failures.
Tonight’s awards should be interesting.
Hey, the absinthe was free.
People who had come expecting a[n Animal Collective] concert (despite the Guggenheim’s advance description of the event as a “kinetic, psychedelic environment”) chattered, drank complimentary absinthe cocktails, grew annoyed and left well before the nearly three hours were over.
Bye-Bye, Boner Party
Today Ned Hepburn shut it down. Boner Party, perhaps the greatest bait-and-switch blog of our time, (I’ll distract you with breasts but really I’m going to talk about how it’d be great to just settle down.) is over and done with.
I’m sad to see it go, but I think the last post sums it all up.
I Can Be Free
Yeah yeah, I know you don’t watch videos at work, whatever. You can even watch this with the sound off and it’s amazing.
I just… I just… Simone says it’s the best thing he’s seen all month, and I wholeheartedly agree.
quote out of context
For the ten of you who watch The Wire *and* know who Terry Richardson is, this is for you.
Dead Theory
Did anyone happen to catch the feature in The Atlantic about The Grateful Dead? Apparently management theorists and academics are using the band as a sociological case-study for business strategy and brand identity:
[The] musicians who constituted the Dead were anything but naive about their business. They incorporated early on, and established a board of directors (with a rotating CEO position) consisting of the band, road crew, and other members of the Dead organization. They founded a profitable merchandising division and, peace and love notwithstanding, did not hesitate to sue those who violated their copyrights. But they weren’t greedy, and they adapted well. They famously permitted fans to tape their shows, ceding a major revenue source in potential record sales. According to Barnes, the decision was not entirely selfless: it reflected a shrewd assessment that tape sharing would widen their audience, a ban would be unenforceable, and anyone inclined to tape a show would probably spend money elsewhere, such as on merchandise or tickets. The Dead became one of the most profitable bands of all time.
Most enjoyable.
Trailer for El Topo (Alejandro Jodorowsky. 1970)
The strangest movie I’d recommend?
Allen Klein presents an ABKCO Film.
John Edwards And The Morality Myth
Since I am playing the political game today, here is a great NPR piece.
Pomo Jukebox
Pomo Jukebox is a new music blog I’m contributing to. Go have a look.
the first legal male prostitute
I think for a male, if you want to be successful in this type of venture, you’re not a prostitute. You’re a surrogate lover. You encompass everything that’s required of you—not only emotionally, physically—but psychologically. Because women are wired differently. They’re much more sensitive creatures. You actually have to enjoy what you do. You can’t necessarily say, “Oh, it’s just a job.” You actually have to say it’s a passion. I think it’s the same situation as with anything that happens when you break apart a social institution. There has to be some kind of change in terminology to describe persons like myself. And it’s more of a civil rights thing now. Basically this is the first time in the economy of the United States that a male has actually stood up and said, “I want to do this for a living.” And be protected under law to do it. It’s just the same as when Rosa Parks decided to sit at the front instead of the back. She was proclaiming her rights as a disadvantaged, African-American older woman. And I’m doing the same. I’m actually standing up now, and hopefully I can be supported by the male community and be understood as a person. This actually isn’t about selling my body. This is about changing social norms.
Congratulations.
(via marginal revolution)
Hadj M´hamed el Anka | Chaabi algerien
By way of Excavated Shellac, where you’ll find more groove booty.
This sounds really good at 2:00 am here in the Driftless Region.
Perforation Problems
Handwritten wisdom and a heart full of soul from Iggy Pop, circa 1995.
it’s been a long road since then, but pressure never ends in this life. ‘perforation problems’ by the way means to me also the holes that will always exist in any story we try to make of our lives. so hang on, my love, and grow big and strong and take your hits and keep going.
all my love to a really beautiful girl. that’s you laurence.
iggy pop
(Thanks to Kate Theimer of ArchivesNext for pointing to this by way of Facebook.)
Brick Tumblr
For any of you that loved Brick, the 2005 teen noir film by Rian Johnson, he recently started a tumblr to put up various images. Focus Features had taken down the official Brick site for a while, and the Tumblr is filled with goodies.
Catch Me If You Can II
Her mind raced through her options. On the one hand, she had a purse full of proof that she was Brooke: her student ID, a Vermont driver’s license, a U.S. passport, an Ohio identification card, a South Carolina birth certificate. She had a part-time job, a rented apartment not far from campus on New York’s Upper West Side and a full course load at Columbia, all registered under the name Brooke Henson.
On the other hand, she wasn’t Brooke Henson.
(Thanks to Andrew Bailey)
Heavy Metal magazine, January 1978
once upon a time in America
I just like the photo
Scrooge | Lord Buckley
Not to bad-rap the cat’s animation, but if this is new to you, you might want to close your eyes and open your ears to Lord Buckley’s Christmas ding-dong-ding-dong-ding-dong.
You can get with it if you want to. There’s only one way — straight to the road of love.
A Yuletide message from me to y’all.
A Christmas Classic
I bet I’ve posted this before, and I bet a bunch of you have seen it before — but it’s a Christmas Classic, so it’s time to watch again.
(John Waters. Female Trouble.)
Michael Steele = Michael Scott
The making of a David LaChapelle Maybach photo shoot
Kind of amusing.
from an article on the US Army’s new stealth drone
The Beast has also been identified with the covert Desert Prowler program, identified by black ops spotter Trevor Paglen. The Desert Prowler’s patches include the phrases “alone and unafraid” and “alone and on the prowl” as well as the figure of a wraith taken from an album cover by Insane Clown Posse. The wraith is said to represent the Grim Reaper…peculiar as it may seem, Paglen has shown that a remarkable amount of information can be gleaned from Black Ops patches and has written a book on the subject.