January 2011
15 posts
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“Soon lots of cassette labels started popping up…. It’s partly a...”
– Matt Mondanile in The Times, proving, I guess, that these cassette-touting hipsters don’t actually try and play back the music they’re busy recording.
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Favorite movies (about the humanities?) of 2010,... →
Featuring a picture of Kristen Stewart hugging Joan Jett, a defense of Chris Crocker, Derridean criticism of those “don’t go to graduate school” videos, and lots of other great stuff.
Paris Review – Totaling the Ferrari: Ferris... →
The problem I have with this piece is that it doesn’t engage with what the film itself thinks that it is doing, except for a brief suggestion that it is “a dream of getting away from the drudges and the scolds….” This leads to a quite incorrect claim that Ferris is hypocritical in trying to get his friend Cameron to confront his father, while Ferris himself lies to his own...
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Universal and Sony Music plan 'instant pop' to... →
Ten years after piracy first began to ravage the music industry…
Fucking seriously? Is the music industry, making record profits, really “ravaged”? And, how did piracy begin in 2001? I suppose it’s hardly surprising that the Guardian Media Group uncritically reprints press releases from its colleagues in the content industries, but it’s still annoying.
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Pop, ambition and retreat →
Nice to see Britney, and Blackout, getting some props:
Everything that’s happened in mainstream pop since – such as the routine electronic treatment of vocals, or the turn to European club beats and synths – happened on this album, only in a darker, braver and catchier fashion.
This is true, but the thing is, all of this is also true, and more true, of FutureSex/LoveSounds, of which...
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LaRouche Denounced Media Fraud Following Arizona... →
I’m disappointed LaRouche doesn’t properly pin the blame on the Queen here, but this is still pretty awesome:
“The mere idea that critics of Obama’s Nazi-modeled euthanasia policy should be held accountable for this crime is, in itelf, criminal. The basic facts, known to anyone who cares to look,” LaRouche explained, “are that President Obama imposed a...
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Imagine a Dr Luke beat stamping on a human...
One of the more irksome things about Katy Perry is the thudding monotony of so many of her tracks: “You. Make. Me. Feel like I’m living a Tee. Nage. Dream…” So why do I like Ke$ha’s apparently equally thudding “Crazy Beautiful Life”? The difference, I think, lies in Ke$ha’s delivery. Where Perry’s vocals line up with and reinforce the beats,...
Should using your real name be allowed? « An und... →
The kinds of things John Yoo advocated are absolutely dispicable and inhuman — but when you then think of John Yoo as a person, who presumably has his own needs and desires and loves his family, etc., suddenly appelations like “war criminal” and “worthy of death” seem somehow disproportionate.
Why should people engaged in public debate be able to abuse their status as particular human beings...
“The bourgeoisie has disclosed how it came to pass that the brutal display of...”
– Driving into Bradford yesterday, I was reminded of this passage from the Communist Manifesto.
The Early Days of a Better Nation →
All will be artists. All will be workers and students, builders and creators. All will be free and equal. Human solidarity will encircle the globe and conquer it and subordinate it to the uses of man. That, my friends, is not an idle speculation. That is the realistic perspective of our great movement. We ourselves are not privileged to live in the socialist society of the future, which Jack...
New worlds of play
tentacular:
The Globestone™ entertains while stimulating your children’s geographic curiosity, allowing for greater creative play than jigsaw or wipe-clean globe toys. Traditionally, rotatably mounted, the Globestone™ is a featureless blue magnetised sphere, & comes in a box containing all the countries of the world (larger states on a piece each, smaller ones grouped into handy-sized...
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“When British TV shows Kate and the Queen out on the town together, taking in a...”
– Tina Brown’s Diary in Private Eye is a note-perfect distillation of American coverage of William and Kate Middleton’s engagement.