September 2011
one last thing I wrote
agrammar:
… is a quick vague question about the fungibility of Radiohead’s skill, which totally seems to have baffled and angered the first few commenters.
Things have always sold out, but it seems like things sell out really intensely in New York. Like those Louis CK shows tonight… or that Radiohead show… or that Jeff Mangum show… or that LCD show… or that Kanye West...
Lady Gaga Won →
One of the problems with looking at Lady Gaga as a music writer or cultural critic is that there’s usually too much stuff going on. This is decidedly a “me” problem and not a “Gaga” problem. I was trying to get a handle on it, and it occurred to me that Gaga’s work and ethos are aptly described by the word “bricolage”, a sort of French deconstructionist term...
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Types of "Spread", Ranked in Order of (My)...
Collar
Offense
As a euphemism, for an array of food
André 3000 song
Two page, glossy
Verb, transitive
Verb, imperative
Shedd’s
“A lot of the women writers I published in the Voice talked about music in the...”
– Chuck Eddy.
No idea if I agree with this.
(via zachbaron)
1) True that Eddy doesn’t often talk about music in the context of his life. But when he does, he is good at it. I just assumed he didn’t like doing it. I wish he would more.
2) This collection is really great. By far my favorite book...
The Tumblr timeline is like a reverse-casino.
You just keep scrolling down with no concept of the time, and all of a sudden you realize you’re at like 3pm from this past afternoon.
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“The night is still young. Drink that dinner wine slow. I’m trying to make...”
– Drake’s verse on J. Cole’s “In The Morning (feat. Drake)”
I was just casually listening to the new J. Cole album (pretty solid), and the first time I heard the Drake song I was kind of annoyed at the hook. Cole seems to be a pretty referential songwriter, and since...
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What would it be like, I wondered while reading... →
maura:
Right?
I think Salem (unfortunately) is actually the “indie” version of Rebecca Black, maybe. (Except in a vacuum I enjoy listening to Salem.)
Still, reading Natasha Vargas-Cooper’s really great profile of Black reminded me of reading David Wallace’s thoughts on the scene in White Noise about he Most Photographed Barn In America. (Jeez, even my...
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NBC Thursday Night Television Reviews
Community
This is clearly the best comedy in the line-up. I missed most of the jokes because our free over-the-air TV doesn’t work super well, but compared to what came next, I feel safe making this assumption.
Parks and Recreation
Somehow, this show seems like it was surpassed by Community, but I don’t know how/when. It seems a little too “safe”, but that could be...
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It's Not Gender Warfare...It's Math.
annaholmes:
(A shorter version of this piece appears in today’s Washington Post. Photo of Google executive and engineer Marisa Mayer via. Headline via.)
Let’s say I was designing a new piece of software to make my life as a writer a little easier. First, I’d program it count how many characters I’d typed out and in what amount of time, in order to document my productivity on any given day....
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Annie Clark, Trojan Horse
One only needs to browse the topics page of Hipster Runoff to see this phenomenon in full bloom: page after page of slump-shouldered, pudgy, and/or bearded guys interspersed with stick-thin, big-eyed, attractive young women. It’s something of a given that celebrities (or “celebrities”) will be more attractive than your average fan, but at least major-label media has an even field: the men and...
“After amiably answering my questions, he signed off, semi-sardonically, with...”
– Jayson Greene pals around with Van Dyke Parks, gives latest reissue a BNR. Pitchfork Reviews Reviews review review vindicated the very next day!
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“In many ways, it’s the opposite of a record like XXX. Whereas Danny Brown’s...”
– Passion of the Weiss on Nights & Weekends (via threedollarpistol)
Two of my favorite ‘things’: Zilla Rocca and Passion of the Weiss.
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Bethlehem Says: The Classical and You →
bethlehemshoals:
The Classical is $8,140 away from its goal. If you’ve donated, we thank you with all our hearts. If you’ve made a principled stance not to—maybe you would prefer to “support” writers with a different model, or believe freelancers can write two things at the same time—then we appreciate your honesty.
If you’re either waiting, or on the fence, this Tumbl is for you. We want The...
“Meanwhile, here’s a great idea from Mark in Pittsburgh: “You know...”
– Ladies and gentlemen, our man in L.A., working to actually make the language regressive!
3 new poems up at the awl →
Heather Christle is my favorite living poet.
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“To this point, they’ve answered the question of “are they really...”
– Ian Cohen made some good points regarding DR’s rapping, and the fact that the highest highs of their mixtapes are higher than the highs on Relax. On the other hand, I’ve never felt like I was “being called a white demon for the greater good” when I was listening to the music,...
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"Is 'Relax' The Album Of The Decade?"
Got to love my editor for making that the title of this thing I wrote about who else, but that’s ok because I stand by the idea behind it. First one thing, an excerpt,
The first big beneficiaries of the internet seemed to be mostly white, mostly Canadian: that is, geographically remote, but racially homogenous with what I’d call the prevailing notion of what’s popular and salable. The...
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“During the 1930s Goodall made several visits to Germany, the last in 1935 when...”
– I got kind of randomly spun onto a Wagner tangent last night by listening to a Radiolab episode about Das Rheingold, and via the magic of the internet (downloadio goo-glownus!), I’ve been listening to the ring operas in English. They’re really great, and sort of interesting...
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Das Racist - The Illuminati Zone: Das Racist Get... →
Toward the end of Das Racist’s sold-out hometown gig at New York City’s Bowery Ballroom, on the eve of the release of the group’s first commercial LP, Relax, something truly strange happened…
Truly strange…
themattsmith:
This is a SOLID mash-up
M83 vs...
Tall white guy high fives to drake raps is white devil sophistry.
Tumblr dash is white devil sophistry.
Being right on time is white devil sophistry.
Das Racist fans are white devil sophistry.
News at eleven.
The tea party is white devil sophistry.
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Is This Darkness In You, Too? (Spoiler Alert: Yes)
So here’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot. It’s both personal and universal. Following Aristotle’s lead, let’s start with what we (eg I) know best.
If nothing performs the function of knowledge, nothing provides the function of virtue, either. I am deeply, deeply suspicious of the idea that being a feminist makes you a better person. It doesn’t.*
...
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Fat White Castle Fan Sues Chain for Bigger Seat →
villagevoice:
Presented without comment
Tiny chicken sandwiches. It’s outlandish, kid!
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