October 2010
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Thus ends the debate on Taylor Swift →
When I am caught in the pivot of this song, I can’t help but feel I carry a card in the immoral generation you describe, B. If LiveJournal counts, I’ve been blogging since I was 15. I’ve been blogging seriously since 18, employing “meaningful prose” and exegesis where I once gathered deposits of the day’s slack efforts. I “overshare.”
It’s good writing by Brad. Still, I can’t...
Four Loko Test →
My headphones cannot get any louder.
I can say with 100% objective validity that the inability for your headphones to get any louder is sign #1 that you’re loco for four loko. That stuff makes you wish all the dials went to eleven. That said, I think if the testor had paced himself a little bit more, he could have finished four. I’ve never drank more than two, but I feel like after...
“Dear John” (Alternate Version)
To...
Disagree to Agree: Part 3! →
The one where I push back hard over Taylor Swift, calling her the goldendoodle of musicians. The one where I do not really say Taylor Swift is a terrorist, but you could make that (leaping) inference.
I’m not sure that a dearth of self-awareness should be the marquee attribute of your singer-songwriter type. And, therefore, I think you’ve again proved my point about Swift (or her record, at...
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“I happen to have two native English dialects — the SWE [I’m assuming he...”
– The essay of David Wallace on usage is part of why I think it’s “check in at,” to be honest. Checking in at and being at seem analogous. I think of the ontology of Foursquare as being locational rather than commercial—although I realize that ontology probably goes against its...
Alex Balk: On language. →
Cho and I got into a VERY HEATED DISCUSSION over whether one checks in “to” or “at” a location with Foursquare. I insisted on “at.’ Cho vociferously disagreed and called me old. Now my feelings are hurt and I still don’t know which is correct. By the way, Cho would badly like you to go here…
(alexbalk)
You’re being bewitched by language! You can be “in a place,” sure....
“Continental philosophy is philosophy which takes things that ‘stand...”
– Second Balcony (via collegefail)
This really is a neat distinction, I suppose. Although I think you could also say that analytic philosophy sees more things as standing out.
A dream (sorry)
I had this involved dream last night. (I know!) I may have been in my old office. My old boss gave me a small wooden box, like a cigar box, of CDs.
And then Chuck Klosterman and I talked about Die Antwood for a really long time.
Klosterman said he had never seen any of the videos, and I was like, You have to see the videos. I started looking for them on YouTube, and I told him about...
Brad Nelson on Taylor Swift →
Taylor Swift is mean.
Taylor Swift is also nice, especially when nice things happen to her. Or when more obscure pleasures, perhaps unrealized, announce themselves—the exact chemistry of a night light or a green eye, or what tethers 2 a.m. to anxiety.
But is she evil? We’ll find out.
The other thing I wrote about Runaway →
The editorial description nails it: “Kanye West continues to fascinate B Michael Payne.”
And that’s it! At least until the album comes out -or- Kanye West does something crazy like cloning himself or buying a pirate ship.
"Disagree to Agree"
The idea of 10 Listen’s new series “Disagree to Agree”1 is to have two people exchange brief essays on a record or artist. The inaugural version of “Disagree to Agree” deals with Taylor Swift’s Speak Now.
Brad Nelson and I will be discussing the album for the rest of the week. He loves it. I hate it:
What the songs seem to get at—significantly,...
Kanye West “My Dark Fantasy”
Hah. I...
“Kanye West is now Björk, essentially.”
– The Garland Grey, saying what we (read: me) are all thinking.
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On Kanye’s Runaway Film (Updated) (Updated 4 Life)
The Runaway film happened. On three TV channels, which are kind of like one TV channel, but that’s still impressive. I think. I don’t have cable. It offers, if my memory serves correctly, a univoca dissemination of media that forces the public to be passive receptors in simultaneity. That seems impressive. I watched it on YouTube, though,
The music is clearly the best part of the...
Right Click + "Toggle Fullscreen..." = Kanye's... →
“Admitting when life is complicated or things aren’t shiny and happy all the time...”
– This piece by Merlin Mann is one of the most labyrinthian, up-and-down, is-this-good-or-shitty?, yet transcendentally whoazers this piece is bananas!!! pieces I’ve read in quite some time. It’s worth a browse/read/Instapaper/reblog, you know?
Tomboyfriend “The End Of Poverty”
...
Absurdist Media: Did Kanye West steal the artwork... →
The one where I say Bieber coulda been a good... →
“For instance, thinking Kick Out The Jams is “one of MC5′s weaker tunes actually”...”
– Continuing my “curation” of funny/good things other people wrote is this selection from No Chorus.
“Until this episode, I’d thought of myself as a working-class girl who’d happened...”
– It’s a good way to start the morning, reading Zadie Smith.
“No homo. Well, I don’t know. Maybe homo. No phobo.”
– Heems
LBing DR o WFMU cont
DJ/Rupture: A track of yours was just played on Hot 97?
Ad: We gotta get our ascap on on that one.
Liveblogging Das Racist on WFMU
Heems: Waka Flaka is from Queens. People like Kanye and Drake make rap seem more authentic, and make it so acts like us could get played on rap radio.
AD: Peak oil. Kanye’s using all the oil.
WatchWhatever, the world is a cold unkind shitty place. I know. It sucks. Maybe you shouldnt’a bought so much McD’s. IN ANY CASE.
Pay attention to this video at the 1:10. The newslady reaches this crescendo of melodramatic affectation that results in her making the word “paramedic” sound really funny. I rewinded this video a bunch of times to hear it because it’s really...
I finally have a good forum for my... →
So you guys don’t have to read them now if you don’t want to.
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Shawty Mane “Speaking In Tongues”
...
“He was in trouble from the very beginning of his career. Look at photographs of...”
– This piece on (then) sixty-nine year-old ping pong master Marty Reisman was posted to Deadspin by Katie Baker. It’s one of the most interesting things I’ve ever read.
“We know Mark Knopfler’s working-class antihero is a thicky because he...”
– An interesting offshoot of Merlin’s Dire Straights post is this Christgau nugget I found through the Wikipedia grapevine. 