June 2011
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Conspiracy Theory of the Day
Bill Simmons notes that Will Smith refused to actually kiss another man in his portrayal of a gay man on the same day Lil B drops an album called Im Gay, in which he refuses to mention homosexuality—all in the same week that New York and Rhode Island legalize same sex marriages. The connection: Lil B and Will Smith will not be getting married.
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“For Hornsby, it was a chance to play one-on-one against the best basketball...”
– “Allen Iverson and Bruce Hornsby: 1993” (via)
Requisite “Bon Iverson” sighting bait?
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Yeah, ofc., Lil B isn't the first person to see a...
Time is an allusion.
Stupid Music Writer Tricks: First 1/2 of 2011:...
Honestly: What’s the point? Oh well, I guess. If you literally have not listened to a stitch of one of one of the ones below, I feel like you probably should.
Battles - Gloss Drop
Beyoncé - 4
Big K.R.I.T. - Return of 4eva
Bon Iver - Bon Iver, Bon Iver
Clams Casino - ALL OF IT
Destroyer - Kaputt
EMA - Past Life Martyred Saints
Fucked Up - David Comes to Life
G-Side - The ONE…...
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“Perhaps not coincidentally, both YouTube and Rihanna’s careers launched in...”
– Perhaps Rihanna invented YouTube (or vice versa).
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"Weird Al:" White and Nerdy →
They say write what you know, so I wrote about asshole nerds.
Even including the parodies, every song on Alpocalypse is a distinctly “Weird Al” song: technophobic, rich, white, socially awkward. Yankovic definitely makes nerdy music, but unfortunately it’s the kind of condescending, anti-social nerdery that gives nerds a bad name.
I also mention the Key of Awesome, who make...
For some reason I wrote a brief review of "Weird...
Slightly fewer than half the songs on Alpocalypse are reimaginings of pop songs of semi-recent vintage. The lead single, of course, parodies Gaga. Its message—that Lady Gaga’s outlandishness is all just a performance—is obvious, but at least it’s specifically targeted at Lady Gaga herself. (It’s not really clear why Al was always clowning on Michael Jacksons about...
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why we fight #15
agrammar:
Is here, and spins off
from a piece I ran last week
which can be found here.
—Basho
trans. Kenneth Rexroth
This is really good. I wrote an embarrassingly slight essay on Kray Kray, but NA’s thoughts on it are really searching/reaching.
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Our Lady Peace “Clumsy”
I downloaded...
“There’s nothing more jarring than a girl who interrupts a good group...”
– Goop! (Though quoted, above, isn’t GP speaking.)
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“I’ve found through talking to other people over the years, that as humans, many...”
– This is a pretty thoughtful email exchange with Wes Boreland, quoted above. (h/t @maura)
Borland’s defense of Limp Bizkit (LB) is fine, I think. But this part above kind of irks me, because I don’t think it’s true. I think that humans are born in order to be runners (ask my...
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Phish Destroys America →
tofias:
This is a compilation of songs from Fall ‘97 that was made by a fan. All of the segues from song to song are flawless and all the songs are also soundboard quality. This is a must have for any Phish fan or anyone that appreciates incredible funky improvisational music!
You had me at 97.
You had me at “destroys America.” B Michael Tumblr is a Phish blog.
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Pitchfork and Sexism: The Rant
Concerning the review of Bon Iver, Bon Iver, from a Joanna Newsom blog.
allthebirds:
I see that they typically gave Bon Iver’s new album (Bon Iver) a Best New Music stamp. I didn’t think the album deserved it after three listens (and I sort of love Bon Iver) because it’s middle section was very weak, although there are many standout songs (“Calgary,” “Perth,” “Holocene”). I was expecting them...
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"I Crossed The Line" - Kanye West Monster →
Speaking of getting paid for writing, here’s an expansion of my preliminary thoughts on “Monster”, which I posted last week as a sort of contextless part that I cut out of this longer piece.
One of the things about the video that jumps out at you is that it resembles nothing more than a fashion exhibition. For all its gore and carnage, no one’s clothes are even a little...
Geek Anecdata
An addition to this rant about Instapaper, since I don’t want to keep cobbling revisions onto it, is that I think there’s a lot of irony here.
Instapaper has a subscription option, which doesn’t confer any additional benefits other than supporting Marco (to develop his iOS app, which costs money to download). Tech blogger Shawn Blanc has a membership model to support his (good)...
“[Readability’s] main goal is the paying publishers angle. You sign up, you...”
– Marco Arment, co-founder of Tumblr and founder of Instapaper, the ür-read-it-later service.
Now, I use Instapaper a lot, though I’m trying to stop. Not for magnanimous reasons, necessarily, but because I have more than 5,000 things in my Instapaper, and realistically, I will never read all...
Dance Words Bumpin: Preliminary Thoughts on...
Kreayshawn - Bumpin’ Bumpin’ from Aris Jerome on Vimeo.
What’s happening is this kind of nutty inside-out approach to authenticity, wherein, White Girl Mob because they’re from Oakland, are assumed to be hood and therefore, more worthy of saying “nigga” than white girls from let’s just say, Beverly Hills. As a construct, that doesn’t work because we accept that all black...
thenotes:
Imagine you were the shop-owner in Dublin who sold Joyce nerds lemon soap on Bloomsday (year-round, realistically) and one fateful June 16th you just … snapped.
Any credit to be profitably had in noting that real Joyce fans go to Zürich and sit in with Fritz Senn?
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“It’s Father’s Day on Sunday, and as I always relate my dad to great meals, I...”
– Gwoopeth Paltrow
ZOMGHAHSDKGJHOAOJ#@$){@U HOW DARE SHE MAKE FATHERS DAY ABOUT HER OWN FATHER AND NOT EVERYONE ELSE’S FATHER OR MY FATHER OR WHO THE FUCK KNOWS!?!? I AM SO MAD AT HER RIGHT NOW.
EDITOR IN CHIEF OF BON APPÉTIT MAGAZINE LOLZ OF COURSE WHY DIDNT SHE ASK THAT RANDOM GUY I PASSED...
“Another wicket for Pakistan (from Ajmal, not Gul), another confounding...”
– Michael Schur (of Fire Joe Morgan/Parks and Rec) and Nate DiMeo (of… public radio?) write humorously about cricket. It’s like “Fear and Loathing in Mohali,” but really dorky and much more funny.
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The Singles Jukebox is back... →
katherinestasaph:
…with a couple new writers you might know! Stop by, say hi, leave death threats in the comments (please don’t), etc.
Oh! Also! Follow us on Tumblr! And on Twitter! Let us take over your lives.
EDIT: Goddamnit I headlined this starting with “so,” didn’t I. Fucking banned words and my mind consisting entirely of cliche and aaaaaaaaargh
I remember when The Singles Jukebox was...
“Suddenly there’s a sense of—what the hell is that?—optimism in the air,...”
– Summer, now a white person thing. I suppose this may not be a terrible piece. The opening just jumped out at me because I haven’t been pasty for about, oh, two months. And most of my neighbors are never pasty.
“Look how loudly we applauded Dirk Nowitzki for overcoming those...”
– I’m loath to link deadspin, but Shoals’s essay was a good response to Drew’s weird, like UFC stack of pancakes bananas rant thing. As well, I’m reminded of an Ani Difranco line: ‘They criminalize the symptoms while they spread the disease.’ Yeah. Ani Difranco. I...
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“Basically, yes.If you missed last night’s schaudenfreudegasm with LeBron...”
– “Not only is it okay to hate LeBron, but it’s a fucking character flaw on your part if you do not.”
I’m glad to see Drew was able to ‘slip in’ some solid rape talk before he even finished his first (complete) sentence. I knew he’d be able to keep going ham... 