B Michael Tumblr

I’ve sort of thought about it off and on since Sunday...

Mon, 20 May 2013 14:53:00 -0400

I’ve sort of thought about it off and on since Sunday morning at 5am when I first watched it, and I still don’t have much to say about the new Kanye West songs. Aside from one colicky moment, I haven’t found “New Slaves” and “Black Skinhead” particularly galvanizing — perhaps intentionally — since Kanye’s whole thing just is that he’s full of contradictions: even his anti-materialism raps are done in designer jackets and chains. But mostly I’m more of an album guy, and I can’t wait to hear all the music in its proper context. Pretty great performances, though. I will say that.

The Gay Bechdel Test: Why Hollywood Needs to Expand Its Representation of LGBT Characters

Mon, 20 May 2013 13:37:00 -0400

The Gay Bechdel Test: Why Hollywood Needs to Expand Its Representation of LGBT Characters:

tylercoates:

Here’s a thing I wrote!

This is good. I think Hollywood needs a “______ Test” for every group of people who aren’t straight white Judeo-christian guys (who adhere to traditional western/capitalist values).

Also, this made me think of a particularly funny thing: on a somewhat recent Bill Simmons podcast, he’s talking with Wesley Morris, a super awesome film/TV critic who happens to be gay. Morris laments the lack of just ‘normal’ gay characters on TV, saying they all have to be martyrs or stereotypes. He wishes that a show could just have a gay character do ‘regular’ stuff. Or maybe even a whole cast of gay characters. And then Simmons enthusiastically chimes in: “Gay Friends!”, and proceeds to list a bunch of gay stereotype stuff. And Morris just like doesn’t say anything, and they move on.

Those of us who depend on Wikipedia as a source of neutral, accurate information might find some cause for alarm in the fact that an editor responsible for 13,000 edits believes Wikipedia is a postmodern novel.

Mon, 20 May 2013 13:35:50 -0400

Those of us who depend on Wikipedia as a source of neutral, accurate information might find some cause for alarm in the fact that an editor responsible for 13,000 edits believes Wikipedia is a postmodern novel.:

As much as I use Wikipedia… I really dislike Wikipedia.

Watching “Game of Thrones” taught me that my...

Mon, 20 May 2013 13:01:40 -0400

Watching “Game of Thrones” taught me that my neighbors are harboring dragons.

Random Thoughts

Mon, 20 May 2013 11:11:00 -0400

It should almost be a crime the way people use the word “random”.

“Random” should really mean, I think, an outcome entirely uninfluenced by anything at all. Other than, perhaps, whatever it is set the outcome in motion. A non-subjective teleology, if you will.

I’ve seen a lot of people say (mostly on video game forums) that there is no such thing as “randomness”. I’ve often thought myself that there’s no such thing as randomness.

Paul F Tompkins once described the plot of Magnolia as “everyone in the phone book has a conversation with each other” or something like that. I think Magnolia was a movie about how everything or nothing in life is random - either of which would be the same thing, I think.

The continual churn of the internet, experience tells us, favors quick connections, conveniences, ephemeral pleasures. But there are areas of culture popping up that seek to slow down, focus on details, and wallow in the kinds of media that it still takes money to create. This is the space that Daft Punk seek to occupy, which in and of itself can be seen as problematic. For those who embrace the more egalitarian approach to music production created by access to cheap tools and cheap distribution, Daft Punk’s mind-bogglingly lush record scans as elitist, possibly even dismissive of the creativity that is happening on a smaller scale.

The meaning of the album title Random Access Memories can be understood in a few ways.

Its primary way is as an abbreviated nod toward the 1971 Paul McCartney album, Ram.
It recalls the thing inside your computer, RAM, which used to cost as much as a session musician’s time but now costs about as much as a session musician’s time.
It also de-commodifies the commodity of RAM and returns it to the human-intentional realm. So RAM is not so much an assemblage of commodity parts and elements; it’s something made with care and love (value added).
It is anything but random.

Random Access Memories, then, is on-purpose expectation defying. It’s as if to say that any random clutch of sense memory could stand as a monolithic cultural experience. That is wrong. The band, Daft Punk, constructs a proof by contradiction to say that culture is not a random accumulation of things (or even events). It is rather orchestrated - with a leaden hand.

Like the 70s disco era it draws from, RAM could almost be seen like a paranoiac’s daydream. A Pychonian romp with just as much detail and presumed cultural import. (You had to be there.)

I almost wanted to say “bildungsroman”, but I’ve been out of college for so long that I’m not sure if I’m quite allowed to call things a “bildungsroman” anymore. But almost anything with a narrative arc + teleological import could be seen as one, right?

RAM is a paranoiac’s daydream, but from the opposite side. It is the man constructing reality. The company giving you the party line. Victors writing history.

It is an argument that there may not be a cause for everything, but also nothing happens on accident, randomly.

They seem to know things that we don’t, and so we can’t be disappointed.

It’s somewhat hard to take Kanye’s trenchant...

Sun, 19 May 2013 06:12:22 -0400

It’s somewhat hard to take Kanye’s trenchant political critiques seriously when they’re expressed in the language of Sandler/Farrell comedies. Explains his affinity for SNL, tho.

Kendrick Lamar“Monster Freestyle” Wow, ok. I just...

Sat, 18 May 2013 12:56:00 -0400

Kendrick Lamar
“Monster Freestyle”

Wow, ok. I just learned about this song’s existence catching up on Shots Fired. It is, as the title suggests, Kendrick Lamar freestyling over “Monster” circa 2010, and it’s about as good as anything he’s ever done.

It’s a Peggy sandwich!

Sat, 18 May 2013 12:18:43 -0400

It’s a Peggy sandwich!

“Commercial In ‘Sponsored Content Pretty Fucking...

Fri, 17 May 2013 14:32:03 -0400

“Commercial In ‘Sponsored Content Pretty Fucking Awesome’ Story Pretty Fucking Awesome”

Doesn’t it seem like Future should dress more like 2...

Fri, 17 May 2013 12:28:00 -0400

Doesn’t it seem like Future should dress more like 2 Chainz? (Thinking of the Egpytian Lover influence on Future, more specifically.)

Crystal Clear Social Cues

Fri, 17 May 2013 11:55:09 -0400

I think it’s sort of interesting. A lot of Google’s ridiculous, definitely-being-evil policies seem to presuppose an anti-social, quasi-sociopathy that we (I) tend to associate with our (my) limited understanding of autism. Viz, The Verge:

“Privacy was top of mind as we designed the product,” Lee said, adding that he’s proud of the way his team has designed Glass. Early prototypes covered a user’s eyes rather than placing the display above the eye. But Google discovered quickly how important eye contact is to Glass, he said. “You’ll know when someone with Glass is paying attention to you,” Lee said. “If you’re looking at Glass, you’re looking up.”

“If you walk into a restroom and someone’s just looking at you — I don’t know about you but I’m getting the hell out of there.”

The built-in camera raises its own, unique set of privacy questions, the Glass team acknowledged. “If I’m recording you, I have to stare at you — as a human being. And when someone is staring at you, you have to notice,” said Charles Mendis, an engineer on the Glass team. “If you walk into a restroom and someone’s just looking at you — I don’t know about you but I’m getting the hell out of there.”

Instead of sort of implicitly understanding someone’s non-verbal cues, speech velocity, etc. to ‘tell’ if they’re checked-in to a conversation, a Google Glass World just calls for looking at someone else’s eye to make sure they’re not using Glass. Similarly, judging by a person’s behavior and manner of dress (for instance) is no longer a good criterion for whether they’re being a creep in the bathroom. You only have to discern whether or not they’re staring at you.

This whole very unsophisticated on-off (digital) style of cognition is just so weird and at odds with the sensitive, very intelligent search results (and advertising bidding software) that is Google’s core competency. It is a very strange and unsustainable-seeming way to be a business.

I discovered the perfect summer cocktail. Does is smell faintly...

Thu, 16 May 2013 18:09:00 -0400

I discovered the perfect summer cocktail.

Does is smell faintly of paleodiet broscience? Yes. Is it sort of ascetic and bitter? Of course. But is it refreshing, simple, and (#broscience) sort of healthy-feeling? Definitely.

It calls for:

Tequila
Club Soda
Ice
Lime (1), Juice Of

Put some ice in a glass. Pour some tequila over the ice. Squeeze in some lime juice. Top off with club soda. Drink it. Cool, refreshing, drunk-making. There you go.

So nice out. Days like this make me want to smoke.

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:30:11 -0400

So nice out. Days like this make me want to smoke.

Bright Eyes“The Center Of The World” Two pills...

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:14:00 -0400

Bright Eyes
“The Center Of The World”

Two pills just weren’t enough.
The alarm clock’s going off
But you’re not waking up.
This isn’t happening, happening, happening,
Happening, happening. It is.

💊💊💊💊💊💊💊💊💊💊💊💊💊💊💊💊💊💊💊💊💊💊💊💊💤💤💤💤😭😭😭😭😭😭👻

Very “Gen X”… Who makes phone calls anymore?

Thu, 16 May 2013 13:18:00 -0400

Very “Gen X”… Who makes phone calls anymore?

"I no longer stare at the “calories burned” display on the elliptical, but how many plates I have on..."

Thu, 16 May 2013 13:00:03 -0400

“I no longer stare at the “calories burned” display on the elliptical, but how many plates I have on each end of the barbell. I can open my own pasta sauce jars now. I am moving soon and do not need the help of any hulking strong lad to transport my furniture. My goal has changed from “be a size zero” to do a motherfucking pull up. I have gained far more self-esteem from being able to pick up heavy shit that I ever have from being able to zip up a skin-tight designer dress. I became a more capable, energetic, independent, and mentally focused person once my focus shifted from what my body looks like to what my body can do.”

- This Trendy “Strong is the New Skinny” Thing (and what it could mean for the next generation of girls) | Sophieologie

PREACH.

(via jennirl)

This seems like a really cool thing. (Dork me wants to tell you that I just used a ‘strong’ tag for that.) I’ve happened to notice more and more women at my gym lately doing squats and other barbell-type exercises that actually generate strength, and that course of action does seem to me more worthwhile than ‘using the elliptical’.

French Montana“Marble Floors” (Feat. Rick Ross, Lil...

Thu, 16 May 2013 10:45:59 -0400

French Montana
“Marble Floors” (Feat. Rick Ross, Lil Wayne & 2 Chainz)

Is it normal to feel constantly conflicted about enjoying certain things? Is this what “[insert religion] guilt” feels like? Is secular person-ism my religion? Or is that just being an adult/boring/stuffy?

Somehow French Montana has become emblematic of ‘ignorant’ rap in my mind. Probably because I find his whole personality and esthetic to be childish and basic, yet still morally repugnant. I made a quiet promise to myself not to listen to music that’s all just “fucking bitches etc”, but then this morning I find myself really enjoying the new French Montana album. It makes me sort of hate myself, I guess.

If I’m being totally honest, then this song has very little to recommend itself. The Mike Will production is not my favorite, though after a few listens it isn’t too bad. The most galling thing about it is that it’s pretty similar in geist to “Bands A Make Her Dance”, one of my all-time favorite songs. This slightly more baroque reproduction makes the original seem all the more mean and small-minded. It’s hard to enjoy much of anything that’s just about getting women to do whatever it is you want to do. I guess, why though? For me it has to do with the reality of the matter and its expression should be remote, but in reality they’re not. It’s like a social realist depiction of the most mundane and depressing state of affairs. So, ok yeah, maybe French Montana is working with some strangely meta existential themes, but also I sort of doubt that. (obvi.)

Can the rationalizations outstrip the hesitations? Stay tuned!

Fun with trashy advertising. Also: wow: new Kanye material....

Thu, 16 May 2013 07:52:00 -0400

Fun with trashy advertising. Also: wow: new Kanye material. Also: which you can’t see anymore. Also: fucking lawyers.

“The new Pixelmator doesn’t make me good at messing...

Wed, 15 May 2013 21:24:04 -0400

“The new Pixelmator doesn’t make me good at messing around with sliders.”
(c) 2013
jpeg

THE HEKTOR QUARTERLY: A Journal of Criticism, by Hektor, Who Is A Dog, And His Name Is Hektor

Wed, 15 May 2013 21:20:22 -0400

This is pretty comprehensive.

sadybusiness:

Hello! Hektor is a critic now. Being a critic is a very hard job, for smart people! You have to look at things, and then you have to say, “things: do you make me happy?” And then you have to say it whether they do or not! You have to be very smart to do this, because if a thing makes you happy, everyone else has to be happy about it also. It is a rule! Because of how you said what to feel!

Hektor takes this very seriously. Hektor is very serious about all the things now, because he is a critic, and he has to tell you whether you are happy. The other dog is not a critic. She is a girl dog, who is mean, and just has opinions. Hektor tells her: “Do you know that you are not smart? I am! I am smart! I know more about the things than you! You have to stop saying judgments about the things!” And then she bites him on his head. The people will give the other dog away soon.

Now Hektor is going to criticize something. People! From now on, you are not allowed to be sad about GAME OF BONES!

GAME OF BONES is a show Hektor is watching, because one of the people started to watch it, and then the other person who is a girl started watching it also and complaining. It is a new show because Hektor just started to watch it and it has four episodes and that’s all.

GAME OF BONES is a show about five nice dogs. The nice dogs decide they would like to have some people, so they choose people who look like they never take any baths and they all probably smell like pee. What smart dogs! These dogs will never be given baths! These dogs will never have people who ask them, “what smells like pee?” They will know that it is THEM! THEY have the pee smell! Hektor concludes that this is a show about a utopian future in which people have adopted dog values.

The five nice dogs have so many adventures! Often these adventures are delightfully comic in nature. One time, a man comes into the room, and he yells at the dog’s girl person, and he is mean in his demeanor and even tries to wrestle although he is not her friend. But then one of the nice dogs jumps on him and bites him. So he dies! Ha, ha, ha! Stupid person! You did not realize there was a dog! Now you are dead.

Later, a smaller person with a weird face who is called Joffrey is ALSO mean, and yells at ANOTHER, smaller girl person. So one of the dog bites him! He does not die, he just cries about it. Ha, ha, ha! Probably you are crying because you don’t have a dog, Joffrey! Probably what you think is, “I wish I had a dog! And also that I did not have a weird face! And also that I did not get bitten!” But NONE OF THESE THINGS ARE TRUE. You have a weird face, and a bite, and you do not have a dog to care about it when you cry, because no-one loves you. Humor!

That nice dog who is called Nymeria goes off to have lots of thrilling adventures. Hektor assumes these adventures will be the main plot driving the rest of the episodes in the GAME OF BONES.

Hektor has to explain the title, because you are not as smart as he is, because he is a critic now. Listen while Hektor explains to you, stupid people!

Read More