Can't Stand Me Now

Farewell Mark Linkous

Administrator — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:35:48 +0000

I can’t say Sparklehorse was the most consistent group/guy in music, but when it/he was good he was very good. Mark Linkous killed himself Sunday — very sad.

Nice to visit but you wouldn’t want to Dwell there

Administrator — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:26:15 +0000

“Daddy was making them watch yet another documentary on the impact of Bauhaus on American architecture.” –from Unhappy Hipsters, a deconstruction of the photography in Dwell magazine.

Kseniya Simonova

Administrator — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 23:17:12 +0000

Now playing

Administrator — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 17:36:17 +0000

The pre-Avatar media blitz was something else, wasn’t it? Seemed you couldn’t pick up a magazine or turn on the telly without seeing a profile of James Cameron. When I read the New Yorker’s take on him, I got hung up on this:

“Creating a universe is daunting,” George Lucas said. “I’m glad Jim is doing it—there are only a few people in the world who are nuts enough to. I did it with ‘Star Wars,’ and now he’s trying to challenge that. It’s a lot of work. I do believe Jim will take this further out than anyone’s ever conceived of.”

That’s pretty heavy — Lucas has spent his whole life creating his universe; Cameron’s film is (far as I know) a one-off. In fact I never would have wondered whether Avatar would be the “next” Star Wars if I hadn’t read this — so perhaps that was a little gamesmanship by Lucas, perhaps he was intentionally setting the bar too high. Because Avatar is not the next Star Wars. It’s a good movie, certainly a quantum advance in digital effects, but it doesn’t come close to Star Wars in terms of complexity. Does it create a universe? Sure, or at least a planet. But the nagging question I had for George Lucas is this: Is creating a universe really so hard or rare? Films don’t do it too often — look back through the top-grossing films of the last few years and Avatar is, indeed, the first blockbuster sci-fi/fantasy since Revenge of the Sith in 2005. But that doesn’t mean there’s a dearth of universe-creating. It’s just happening in video games.

As I watched the opening scenes of Avatar, I felt like I’d been through this before — this was Halo, or Doom, or Bioshock. The intro was uncannily like a video-game setup. I couldn’t shake that feeling throughout — that Avatar was a good film that might ought to have been a video game. There’s no way to check this, but I wonder whether the critics and viewers who are so nutso about Avatar happen to be a bit ignorant about the state of console gaming.

Without words

Administrator — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 08:40:17 +0000

It’s been, what — two weeks? — since the season finale of Californication aired and I still can’t get “Rocket Man” out of my head. I don’t particularly like Elton John, but this scene just blew me away. It was an uneven season, and I often couldn’t make up my mind whether I was watching one of the best of the HBO/Showtime bunch or one of the worst. Commenters at New York magazine’s site were similarly ambivalent about the season, but I was surprised how many didn’t like this ending. Compare it to the Dexter ending. Both Dexter and Californication’s Hank have been getting sloppy (actually, Hank started sloppy), and that sloppiness has finally bitten them in the ass. Hard. Dexter pulled a traditional last-second shock move — you think it’s over, and then it’s so not. With Hank, I never bought that it would be over, never bought that he’d actually get back together with Karen and live happily ever after. It was just a question of how and when it would unravel, and that unraveling was a banal event poetically told. With dialogue, it’s a confession, an argument, a physical struggle. The Elton John song puts the emphasis back on Hank: Things aren’t falling apart because Hank slept with Mia, who was like a daughter to Karen, etc., they’re falling apart because Hank can’t get the hang of this terrestrial life. The song elevates the scene, and for me, the scene has elevated the song. I really like it now. And the drums help:

Talk about your cats getting weeded down

Administrator — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 03:45:36 +0000

True story: I was a little uncomfortable leaving the big NYC penis image at the top of the page. What if I didn’t post for a week or two — do I want this thing dangling there indefinitely? Like the old saying about wearing clean underwear in case you’re hit by a car crossing the street. So I did up a post on this video (below), which had me laughing out loud in the Starbucks the first time I watched it, and told Wordpress to post it the day after the NYC penis post. Then I check the blog today after the Thanksgiving hubbub has died down and — cool, big NYC penis at top of page, no sign of this video. Yep, NYC penis has been in the top spot for nine days. To anyone traumatized, I offer my apologies. This is still funny tho:

Anatomy of the city

Administrator — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:35:53 +0000

On the subway today trying to explain the MTA map to the curious kid. Looking at it anew, I noticed — not that I shared this with him — yeah, it does look like a shlong, doesn’t it? All in all it was a nice visit to the Upper East Urethra but I’m glad to be home in west Bozack. [Image from Subway Art Blog.]

OED WotY FAIL

Administrator — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:10:49 +0000

The Oxford English Dictionary has chosen “unfriend” as its word of the year.

Problem: The term is de-friend, not unfriend. I have de-friended numerous people over the years. Twitter is a different matter — on Twitter you follow, and then when the person starts spouting a bunch of Fox News garbage you unfollow. But on Facebook and MySpace you do not unfriend. You de-friend. Unfriend doesn’t sound at all right.

That was my reaction when I heard of the OED’s pick. It was also Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes’ reaction. I hear he knows his Facebook lingo pretty well.

Paper doing the white man’s overbite

Administrator — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:43:52 +0000

I find it difficult to get excited over Esquire’s “Augmented Reality Issue,” out next week. As a veteran of magazines — a casualty of them, actually — I have to say that this kind of thing is just dead wrong. You get a magazine with a glyph on the front that you hold up to a cam and then a thing goes whooooo and some creature does a flip and starts singing showtunes right there on your computer screen!. Actually, I don’t know what I’m supposed to get from this augmented reality (link to Esquire site in this Geeksugar post goes nowhere; this AP story is a little more illuminating) but can it be any better than what could simply be embedded into the digital version of Esquire delivered by Zinio? I think that what people still like about magazines (and people still do like them) is that they are tangible, portable things. It is a slightly retro appeal. The truth is, despite all the really cool things one can do with digital distribution, people do not want to read magazines on their computers. I don’t think readers are complaining that their magazines aren’t gimmicky enough; I don’t think readers finish an article printed on paper and feel empty inside because they can’t immediately discuss it with strangers. Print magazines are suffering, but not because they are low-tech. But if they start seeming embarrassed about their low-techiness, I think their suffering will get worse. So much of what’s happening to magazines has to do with perception; magazines may be doomed because a lot of people (particularly advertisers) think they’re doomed. Stuff like this isn’t helping.

I’ll get my copy of Esquire next week and I’ll give the Augmented Reality Issue the old college try. Maybe I will feel, in the words of the magazine’s art director, “like a caveman seeing fire for the first time.”

Drunk Ewoks

Administrator — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 01:09:27 +0000