May 2011
April 2011
David Banner “Cadillac on 22s”
I had...
Derivative Stuck
You may find yourself bummed when you get Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok” stuck in your head. It happens. But here’s something worse, perhaps. Say you’ve actually chosen to listen to “Tik Tok.” (It happens.) And now, what gets stuck in your head isn’t the song itself, but rather some stupid video you saw of World of Warcraft things dancing along to “Tik...
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“Pao Gasol recovered from the illness that afflicted him in the beginning of the...”
– J A Adande
Laugh out loud, what? Did people think that because Gasol stunk it up in Round 1 that his penis disappeared?!
How I Came to Work at the Wendy's. →
I’ve seen this on my dash quite a bit the last few days. I (honestly, really) have to say, I don’t see what the big deal is. More specifically, I don’t find this sad or slightly tragic. I don’t find the protagonist at all sympathetic or appealing. I don’t know why anyone likes this or cares about it. What is wrong with you?
If you don’t feel like looking at...
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phiLOLZophy: Wut Philosopher do Y'all Most Want to... →
philolzophy:
Kant
Sorry. Wrong. Incorrect. Not right. Quite erroneous. Off the mark. A few pints short of all the pints. Perhaps libelous.
Kant is one of the most entertaining to read and also pellucid thinking philosophers ever. He pretty much never left Könisberg, yet devised an entire system of thinking that included aesthetics, religion, morality, politics, science, logic, epistemology,...
marathonpacks: danah boyd is pissed at Tumblr, and... →
marathonpacks:
danah boyd is pissed at Tumblr, and rightfully so:
A few years ago, I learned that there is a technology consulting company called Zephoria.com. And apparently, they’ve become a social media consulting company. In recent years, I’ve found that they work hard to block me from using the handle…
Oh I thought it was just Pitchfork-hating domain squatters that Tumblr...
On Birthing
The birther situation doesn’t have anything to do with evidence, because to be a birther is to fundamentally reject the notion of evidence. This is a very truncated/shoddy philosophical perspective on why the birther thing happened and why it’s important.
Philosophy has something to do with this. Specifically, the branch called “epistemology,” which roughly means...
A Dynamic
Tune Yards has a name that sounds like a Twitter client. But
Dirty Projectors sounds like birds, and
They have a bunch of songs about birds.
It’s a great thing for their career that Tune Yards toured with Dirty Projectors, but
They don’t compare favorably to them; they do
Look a lot better on paper than Dirty Projectors, though, since
D. Longstreth makes me think,
Charles Ives,...
“The four right chords can make me cry. When I’m with you I feel like I...”
– everyone ever everywhere
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy Baseball Team
HOW DID I MISS MAKING THIS JOKE (well, “joke”) UNTIL TODAY?!
A Few Thoughts On Lady Gaga's "Judas"
The song’s first verse conflates a couple of Biblical events. She says she’ll “wash his feet with [her] hair,” alluding to a figure traditionally contrasted with Judas, the woman who washed Jesus’s feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair (Luke 7:44). She goes on to say she will “forgive him […] even after three times he betrays [her],” which is...
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SPIN: "The Debate About Rap, Misogyny, and... →
no-trivia:
This week’s column is a bunch of related but all-over-the-place thoughts on Ashley Judd, Frank Ocean, Mister Cee, and Lil B.
Mr Soderberg’s recent Spin columns have been really really good. It’s the sort of accounting for music that does the “insert -ist word here” thing without saying, “Hey look at me, I’m doing the “-ist”...
Liking Gwyneth Paltrow Is Like Linking To Yourself... →
It’s come to my attention that somewhere Gwyneth Paltrow was on TV last night, so I thought I’d repost this thing I wrote about her. I have not significantly changed my thinking on it; rather, it’s a bit more narrow or focused, if you will.
It seems like there’s genuine, tabloid-style hunger to relate to stars as someone just like us. It’s not even that their lifestyle is...
redneckzilla asked: See also: Cartesian concern with the disparity between language and meaning. It might seem conservative to necessitate a link between words and material cultural meaning but, well, the opposite is a complete breakdown in meaning. Which isn't bad (add italics to that "bad"), per se, but it isn't really possible when you apply it to people and cultural products. People will...
redneckzilla asked: I heard you were asking about whether or not people can just like Kanye West for his music. Objectivism alarms ringing aside; that's like asking whether or not people can just like pizza for its taste. Sure people like music and highly controversial performers "just for their music". But they also can only understand that music in the cultural and personal contexts that they come...
Rebecca Solnit: Men Explain Things to Me →
ladyjournos:
The archipelago of arrogance.
Tom Dispatch || April 13, 2008
I love this title. It makes me think of that one Foucualt book.
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Odd Future Writing B-Sides
-Or- Someday I Won’t Find Odd Future Entirely Fascinating (If A Little Tiring To Keep Writing About) -Or- How I Learned To Finally Stop Worrying And Love The Split Infinitive (Working Title?)
Earl released one of the most divisive mixtapes in the Odd Future oeuvre. On the one hand, EARL showed the young rapper to be the group’s most talented on the mic, but his work also sets the...
Kanye West “Gorgeous”
A few...
The Real History of Twitter →
nickdouglas:
Wow. Lotta sourced quotes on this. Wish I’d been paying more attention to gossip when these guys were still a dinky company that a few geeks used.
This is the sort of “news” and “reporting” that I’d be willing to pony up some cash for. It’s a genuinely interesting piece that makes you go, WTF.
“Fact: The birth agonies of the New IRS led to one of the great and terrible PR...”
– “David Foster Wallace,” The Pale King
I am really glad that Wallace (or “Wallace”) makes some of these larger political points that he broached candidly about in interviews (cf, Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself), which were fixed almost bromidically in the...
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Boredom As Religious Experience →
My friend Mike has a review of Pale King at The Rumpus!
I'm not a business, man, etc. →
If anything, Life and Times collects the latest passing trends and refracts them through the prism of present-day Jay’s affluence. So it’s kind of like The Blueprint III.
I wrote something last week about how lame Jay-Z is getting. It’s called prescience. Look it up.
Crowdsourcing Papaya
I am not allergic to papayas, and I like them. Sometimes I buy them at the grocery store. I try to get ones that are a little green, and not too Mr Squishee. Anywhoo, whenever I eat the store-bought ones, they burn my mouth and taste terrible.
Now, I have a philosophy. When you see a shit tornado, you just run straight into it rather than away from it. I read a message board about papayas that...
A Few Things Wrong →
Someone got beaten almost to death in LA for wearing a Giants jersey to a Dodgers game. A columnist wrote a piece saying it was kind of that guy’s fault, since he was wearing A) the wrong jersey, and B) wearing a jersey at all—come on, grow up.
Rob Neyer links to the offensive article, saying “Isn’t blaming a sports fan who’s almost beaten to death for wearing enemy...
Pertinent to My Interests: Gwyneth Paltrow and... →
Oscar-winning actress and my sister Gwyneth Paltrow emailed me and said, “I love your new site. Can I ask you five questions about it?” I said, “I’ll show you mine if you let me see yours.” Here are mine. Go see hers at goop.com. It’s fresh.
Further:
Sean Carter: Personally I was very surprised at your extensive knowledge of hip-hop songs. Particularly how you can sing ’90s hip-hip songs...
NowPlaying for Mac →
So, if you’re like me, you’ve spent some time on this frivolous thing, which is actually really important to you. This program costs a buck, and it doesn’t take up any memory or CPU. It displays current iTunes song and artist, and it’s perfect.
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