“Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.”
Working towards that number changes the way you see the world. Living in this crowded-crumbling, sexy-scary, crazy-noisy, feast-of-vision city surely helps a bit. Keep your eyes peeled and trigger-finger ready.
“When I was your age television was called books!” Peter Faulk neatly sums up the written word’s apparent fall from grace. Yes, the telly has of late been dating smarter girls. But there’s more than one way to peel a couch potato. Turn it off and turn the page.
“A film is more like music than like fiction.”
Indeed, they are birds of a feather– a murder of crows pecking away at yoga, politics and walks in the park to carve out a life of blurred vision, tinitus and narrow cultural vocabulary. That’s the way, uh huh, I like it.
Have you seen these ridiculous adverts for Windows 7? I know us Mac geeks are wont to take any shot we can at our old nemesis, but this one is a slam dunk.
Pretty girl in bad British accent revels in the fact that W7 now has a “new task bar…Now I can see everything I have open!”
Wow! Revolutionary! How did we ever get along without this new feature? Well, 10 years ago we all got Mac OS X. That’s how.
I’ve spent an hour or so on W7 (I feel so dirty) and it is an improvement from XP and Vista (a monkee could have improved those). But as always, those improvements were pilfered from functionality that’s been native to the Mac OS for 10 years.
Apparently some illustrious souls have shot back at these ads with pretty much the same sentiment. Cheerio, chaps! Suck it, Windows!
Yeah, those ads make me laugh. Every single feature is something we Mac users have had for years, as you say. Also entertaining is how the people in the ads become sexy ‘models’ in their remembrances of how they came up with the idea….
Some ideas’ mothers are bigger than other ideas’ mothers
I thought of it first
In 1999 I started amassing a hefty collection of cover songs recorded or performed by big-gun artists and fledgling indies. Lovingly sequenced, badly art-directed and inspiringly named, Undercover became a coveted collection of faithful renditions and inspired interpretations of the pop music canon.
125-tracks strong and still growing, it reminds us of pre-teen years spent in front of a mirror, tennis racket slung low, air-guitaring our way to stardom to the strains of Highway to Hell. Ok, for me it was more like air-drumming with utter precision through the whole of Moving Pictures. It’s the unspoiled yen of a pure heart that aspires a kid to get the band back together again, learning to rock by imitation of our musical heroes.
There’s much to, um, cover on the subject, so for now I say just this:
It’s mine. All mine. Don’t be fooled by legit imitations:
10 years prior to this sham, The Original is so much better. Nyah, nyah. Witness a selection from Volumes 1 thru 5 (hurriedly compiled, unlovingly sequenced, for now). You can hear complete versions of each volume here or in the audio player at the top of this page.
Extremely cool that today on C-Span, during Health Care Bill deliberations, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi granted Tennessee House of Representatives Steve Cohen (D) one minute to pay tribute to “a great friend of mine… from my home town of Memphis.”
Stellar songwriter Alex Chilton is dead at 59, of an apparent heart attack. Sigh.
Last December I passed up a chance to see a reunited Big Star at Brooklyn’s Masonic Temple, opting instead to spend my dollars on the Bob Dylan shows also happening that week. I regretted it then, doubly so now.
Big Star was one of those bands that felt very much of my time, despite peaking 10 years before Sister Lovers and Radio City made their way into my record collection. I came of age in the keyboard-swathed 80′s, but something about that late 70′s sound and Chilton’s guitar/vocal combo felt instantly familiar–a members-only respite for those making the uneasy transition between high school and college. The defiant pop of “You Can’t Have Me” and “You Get What You Deserve” justified and fed our disdain for authority; the romanticism of “September Gurls,” “Thirteen,” “Back of a Car,” and “I’m In Love With A Girl” conjured rosy-glow memories of young love; and the eery strains of “Kangaroo,” “Holocaust” and “Big Black Car” gave many starry-eyed, angry young men cause to re-think the quest for rock n’ roll fame. All of this Chilton managed without maudlin sentimentality; without self-pity; without tainting earnest expression with irony.
But I’ll remember Alex Chilton most as the author of one my Top 5 Songs of all time. Joining the ranks of “Blackbird,” “Wish You Were Here,” and “Bird On a Wire,” Big Star’s “Thank You Friends” gives voice to a thought not expressed enough among us. So much so, it became the centerpiece of me and my wife’s wedding soundtrack and our ceremony’s general sentiment:
Thank you, friends
Wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you
I’m so grateful for all the things you helped me do.
Thanks Rob, def add the show to my “can’t believe I passed that up” list. At least Leonard Cohen is safe from appearing on that list after catching him at Beacon Theater last year. Glad Alex got to go out with one last ride around the rock block.
Oh, and by the way, I posted that YouTube video on my SitOnMyFacebook page like, 6 years ago ;-)
This is gonna be short ’cause I wanna spend some time thinking about last night’s killer opening act Buke + Gass, (scroll down).
The National’s second night at The Bell House treated it’s lucky audience to a tighter, more controlled performance of the band’s forthcoming LP High Violet (in stores May 11). Which is not to say that the band didn’t let loose. Matt especially took his now- familiar plunge into the audience during “Mr. November” one extra step, challenging his stage crew as he pushed the limits of his mic cord to find his wife seated in a reserved nook next to the sound board. Clutching her lovingly, he screamed the tracks mantra once, twice, three times a lady before traipsing back on stage for the song’s finale.
It’s this kind of performance that whips their fans into a frenzy. The stable catalog of songs performed last might was greeted with predictable cheers and affection. But High Violet’s tracks have yet to see the formal light of day, leaving the audience challenged to hook in to the new material’s denser, less song-y structures. The audience’s relative lack of energy during these tracks definitely reflected on the band as they reached to make an impression that has yet to be cemented. But relax boys. Give ‘em a few listens more and they’ll be eating out of your hands the whole set through.
Describing a creative act as “interesting” is often a polite way of calling it “tedious.” So very not so in the case of last night’s opening act for The National’s repeat performance at The Bell House.
Brooklyn’s Buke + Gass prick up your ears to a most unusual and exciting approach to making pop music. B+G’s Arone Dyer and Aron Sanchez have literally built for themselves a Frankenstein family of musical instruments anchored by the Buke (a bass ukelele) and a Gass (a stringed instrument equal parts bass and electric guitar). Add a sizable kick-drum festooned with shakers and tambourines, zap it all hot with distortion and you’ve got more beautiful noise than the aggregate members of your favorite Canadian musical collective are capable of making.
Born of an appalachian Kate Bush with a Led Zeppelin complex, the songs on the band’s debut record +/- mine Ledbelly’s gritty blues to produce playfully psychotic little rockers that would turn PJ Harvey green with envy. The tracks buzz, growl, stomp and swagger like a bear having his way with a swarm of bees; but rest assured, beneath all the clang and clatter lie some seriously sticky treats.
Poised to release their followup to Boxer, The National gathered a few hundred friends, family and music press last night for the first of an intimate two-night stint at Bell House in Gowanus, Brooklyn, where they took the entirety of High Violet for a loose, raucous spin around the block. The shows were a tightly guarded secret unthwarted by the usual leaks and breaches. The Circle of Trust remains.
The boys seemed glad to be out of the confines of the studio, where they have spent the last 10 months crafting what is shaping up to be yet another leap forward in songwriting and, particularly, studio production. Matt was loose and jovial, thanking the band, the audience and his brand-new microphone stand, of which he seemed quite taken by. He joked his way through as he tripped over the opening lyric to “Start A War,” the band determined to avoid a false start. Scott bobble-danced his way through the bass parts as drummer Bryan shredded the set with furious sixteenths. The Brothers Dessner banged, clawed and thrashed the guitars to produce High Violet’s growling new textures, while guest musicians Conrad Doucette (Takka Takka, drums + percussion) and Thomas Bartlett (Doveman, piano) joined the core group to fill out the densely-layered new tracks. The now-familiar horn section of Kyle Resnick and Ben Lanz lent the usual brassy class to the high-energy performance.
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Stay tuned for more following tonight’s repeat performance.
In the meantime, you can get a small taste of HV on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon where TN performed Terrible Love this past Wednesday:
This post needs little embellishment. Suffice to say, this kid is an inspiration to drummers and National fans as she pretty much nails the complex sticking patterns of Bryan Devendorf’s remarkable drum track. You’ll find others on YouTube doing the same thing, perhaps technically more proficient, but none with the charm of this girl’s bewildering choice of practice tracks.
So at least this year’s Oscars were not quite as predictable as they can be. Many of the choices defied cynical attitudes towards the Academy. Which is not to say that all their choices this year made any fucking sense–but at least it wasn’t boring. There certainly were more head-scratching, cringe-inducing moments this year than any ceremony I can recently recall. And some welcome firsts transpired as the first woman won the Best Director award while Jeff Bridges finally got his due, Dude. //More
There are so many reasons to hate the Oscars. It’s prom night for the celebrity set. It’s tediously long. It’s indulgent acceptance speeches. It’s lame hosts reaching for laughs and falling flat (John Stewart and Billy Crystal gleefully exempted). It’s often a reward for middling achievements in popular filmmaking. And more often than not, each year the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences consistently disappoints discerning audiences in choosing the best picture of the year. But…
I still find myself drawn to them–particularly in the last few years, when some truly remarkable films and performances have made the dubious Oscar grade. George Clooney and David Straithern in Good Night, and Good Luck; Tilda Swinton and George Clooney in Michael Clayton. Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan.Roger Deakins double nomination for Best Cinematography for different films in the same year (No Country for Old Men and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford).
Then there’s the few unscripted award night moments that break through the artifice to reveal something genuine: Glen Hansard’s inspiringly modest acceptance speech for Best Original Song followed by John Stewart’s decisive, utterly classy move to give co-writer Marketa Irglova her due after being rudely cut off by commercial interests.
So I must admit I’m looking forward to tonight’s events. Even though I’m worried the Academy will favor Precious to undeservedly sweep (I know, I’m an asshole) and Avatar, perhaps just a little less deservedly, will come a close second. Or is it the other way around? Either way, ho-hum… And don’t get me started on the pandering and highly offensive choice to include The Blind Side among the Best Picture candidates. Affluent white woman saves underprivileged black teen from a presumed life of poverty and crime. You fucking kidding me?
But on the flip side… an animated feature is amongst the Best Picture nominees for, I believe, the first time. The awesomely weird District 9 has not chance, but it’s up there. The Dude is nominated, this time as a drunken country singer. And George Clooney is once again nominated. He won’t win this year, but still…I love that man. Not in a gay way. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Besides Sandra Bullock’s startling hair do, there’s more than a few good reasons to check out this tasteful little clip–celebrities are asked their pick for Best Performance of the Decade. There’s some predictably just answers (Kate Winslet, duh), but more often than not, this group of indie and A-list actors come up with some thoughtful, interesting choices. The fact that Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan was not one of them still boggles the mind, but… there was one response in particular that caught my attention: Jake Gyllenhall chose “any performance by Peter Sarsgaard.” Abso-fucking-lutely. About time some one said it.
Now, whether this is nepotisim or not (his sis Maggie is married to Peter) I could care less. Sarsgaard consistently outperforms all others in small and headlining roles alike (check out Shattered Glass, Boys Don’t Cry, Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Kinsey and Until The End of the World, to start with). His measured, minimalist performances are as disciplined as any of Matt Damon’s work (after Syriana, The Good Shepherd and the Bourne films we can legitimately consider Ben Who-fleck’s ex-boyfriend a fine actor). So, if Damon is the “thinking man’s action hero,” then Sarsgaard is the thinking man’s…thinking man.
Beers in a can suck They lose their crispness and body and deny us the eye candy of a glistening, sweaty golden bottle of lager or the thick foam of a chocolaty, full-bodied stout. (Sorry, I got carried away there, but I’m sure there’s such a thing as beer porn out there).
Now, cans certainly afford us a pseudo-manly display of strength as we punctuate our last slug with a crushing hand (shark hunter Captain Quint did it best). But the canned beers’ charm ends there. At least until recently. Three beers negate the theory:
The Sapporo tall boy: Housed in a tank of a can, it’s a stalwart silver monster that will defeat all but the manliest hands. It’s crisp, flavorful, delicious. Drunk from a glass bottle: Insipid and lame, tastes like ass.
The Heineken Mini Keg. Also quite the sturdy vessel. When offered the same beer in a bottle, I opt for wine, whiskey, gin, hell – even a Coke. But not so in the mini-kegger. It’s delicious, crisp, relatively full-bodied. But don’t be fooled – the run of the mill canned version also tastes like ass.
Tecaté: For some, it’s Mexico’s Budweiser, except, you know, actually tasty.
Add a lime and it’s sublime.
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OCD recipe for crispy Coca-Cola I’m from two Southern locales that revere Coca-Cola: Mexico City (the second biggest market in the world) and Atlanta (the birthplace of Coke). Neither is responsible for my love and loyalty to the best beverage every made (bourbon, another typically southern spirit running a close second, though never, ever mixed with Coke. Why ruin two good things by putting them together).
To borrow from a terrible movie (The Invention of Lying), Coke’s competitor should adopt the following marketing campaign: “Pepsi. When they don’t have Coke.” Amusing as the this notion may be, Sir Knight (another fellow Southerner) and I would pay it no heed. Sitting in a New York deli one fine day, we each asked the waitress for a Coke with lime. “Is Pepsi ok,” she asked. “No!” we replied in close harmony. We order iced tea instead.
So, if you share our passion for the crispy caramel delight, here’s the proper way to serve it:
It’s gotta be served from a can. Or at least a glass bottle if you can find it these days. Coke in a plastic bottle: flat-ish and strangely film-y.
You gotta pour it over ice. But not just any ice. It’s gotta be wet ice, cubed, not crushed. Plop them in a highball glass, rinse them with cold water and drain it, leaving only the ice.
Squeeze a wedge of lime over your freshly-rinsed ice. No self-respecting Mexican uses lemon.
Pour the Coke like a pro pours a beer. Slowly, tilting the glass.
Now tell me if that’s not the crispest coke you ever had.
Friends laughed at the fastidiousness of this approach. ‘Till I presented them with a taste test that forever changed their coke-drinking habits. One beverage was prepared with love and tenderness. The other was sloshed carelessly into a glass smoking with dry ice, resulting in a beverage flat as a pre-teen and as syrupy sweet as a bad romantic comedy.
Yes, mental speed outsrips limited typing skills. Proofing only works 90% of the time when you multi-task. Find a typo? Your proofing services appreciated. Contact me and provide post link URL and text reference. Much obliged, kind sir, lovely madam.
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Tuesday 03.23.2010 | 5:53 UTC
KBJr says:
Yeah, those ads make me laugh. Every single feature is something we Mac users have had for years, as you say. Also entertaining is how the people in the ads become sexy ‘models’ in their remembrances of how they came up with the idea….