Let me ask you, what kind of person do you think Scarlett Johansson is?
You have probably never met her, and I definitely have not, yet we both seemingly feel like we could describe her personality with reasonable accuracy.
This is peculiar.
It's not shocking to learn that humans enjoy making personality judgments based upon scant evidence. But with celebrities it seems exceptionally dubious, since we actually know literally nothing about them first-hand. Lohan, Aniston, Springsteen, Cruise -- why do all these people seem to have well-formed personas? How much of it is real and how much is manufactured? What are the sources we use to scrape together these mysterious portraits?
There are a few known mythological origins. Maybe that profile in Rolling Stone had some lasting influence, and perhaps those eight minutes on Leno left an impression. But these sources, mediated and filtered and manicured, seem exceptionally unreliable. So what else is there?
Oh yeah, we have their work. Scarlett gave a lasting impression in Lost in Translation, so perhaps we know a little more about her because of how she gobbles sushi with Bill Murray. But wait -- she was acting. Can we really conclude anything about her personality from these flickering screen moments?
I've spent an inordinate amount of time considering this question: why do we think we know people who we'll never actually know?
Here's my best guess: we trust gossip.
Before mass media, gossip was merely personal information shared about a mutual acquaintance. In other words, pre-modern gossip was the original conversational marketing: valued information shared by reputable sources.
With the onset of broadcasting, publishing, and eventually the internet, the intimacy of gossip bred with the entertainment industry, birthing the hybrid offspring known was celebrity gossip. Of all the animals in the media zoo, celebrity gossip emerged as the most chimerical creature. Every day, hundreds of weird little stories pop up on sites with names like Hollywood Tuna and Egotastic and Celebrity Puke. Sometimes they make outrageous claims (Amy Winehouse just ate a drunk baby!), and other times the narratives are ostentatiously mundane (Tara Reid just ate a taco!). Through these morsels of checkout lane anti-matter, we form lasting opinions about celebrities.
That finally brings us to today's launch of GossipCop.com, a site that I did the strategy/design/development on. The premise is simple: investigate the accuracy of the daily anecdotes, the rampant rumors, and the cubicle grist known as celebrity gossip. Think of it as TMZ meets Smoking Gun. Or maybe Perez Hilton meets Columbia Journalism Review. Whatever -- the prevailing idea is that even seemingly unknowable information can be investigated in today's info-rich economy.
My three favorite features on the site:
+ Truth Meter. Every post investigates a piece of celebrity gossip and provides a rating, from 0 to 10, based upon the likelihood of the story.
+ Paparazzi Patrol. Rather than churn out more celebrity video, Gossip Cop looks at the underside of the celebrity gossip business. By turning the camera back on the paparazzi, the site reveals the gossip creators for what they are. (This feature was originally dubbed "Papsmeared," a name I really loved but which was ultimately dropped.)
+ Twit Happens. With its direct interaction and unfiltered access, Twitter could end up being the greatest invention in celebrity journalism since the camera. It is quickly becoming the ultimate device for determining how impressions are made, rumors are debunked, and celebrity battles are fought. This hand-picked list contains the best tweets of the day.
Truthfully, I'm not much of a celebrity news consumer. But I hope this site adds a new angle into the salacious, rumor-driven celebrity culture.
And maybe I can finally get to know Scarlett.
There were 35 entries found with "battles":
From Vulture's series finale wrap of Battlestar Galactica: "Turns out 'God' is simply an unexplainable force of nature, like Prince or ice-cream headaches."
Best show on TV right now? The Office lost its edge when Jim and Pam went lovey-dovey; Gossip Girl fires as many blanks as bulls eyes; Battlestar Galactica found earth; Heroes got lost trying to be Lost; and Lost... okay Lost is still pretty fucking great. But the big surprise on TV right now is Dollhouse. When the first episodes of Joss Whedon's new series started making the rounds in critics' circles, it was roundly panned. Rumors spread that FOX execs were to blame for meddling with the pilot, which actually was pretty terrible. But that old Whedonesque subversion has slowly crept back in, particularly with clever dialogue and plot trickery. (This week's episode drops those vintage hip-hop Whedon lines like "my first check had more zeroes than the luffwaffa.") If you want to sample, I suggest either last week's epp where the dolls infiltrate a religious cult or the one where they join a girl band -- doesn't it already sound good? Update: good comments inside, some of which echo the recent Atlantic piece, Joss Whedon and the Real Girl.
A Battlestar Galactica panel discussion at the United Nations. "The panel will be moderated by Battlestar fan Whoopi Goldberg," who is probably the ninth Cylon.
The College Humor Show, which premieres tomorrow at 9:30p on MTV, sure made the media rounds the last few days: NYT, NYO, WaPo, AdAge. The last one, a Dumenco interview with Ricky, is the best. "I haven't asked Barry [Diller] about being on the show, but it would obviously be great to have him do a cameo. He's one of the funniest people I know -- not funny for a guy in his sixties, or funny for a media mogul, but legit funny." And then: "Knowing Nick [Denton], I think he'd much prefer to be a character in Battlestar Gallactica or Friday Night Lights." Trailer.
10-part webisode series of Battlestar Galactica, in preparation for the January season premier.
Battlestar Galactica Creator Takes On Children Of Men. This dude seems determined to remake things that no one else thought to remake. [via]
Some new releases that come out today.... Music: The Teenagers' Reality Check, Be Your Own Pet's Get Awkward, and The Kills' Midnight Boom. DVD: Southland Tales, Season Three of Battlestar Galactica, and the Criterion of The Ice Storm.
This year proved again that when it feels like the entire goddamn world is going to hell -- that's a good time to throw a dance party. Whether you were fist-pumping for Maya's admittance back into America, chanting "We are North American scum!" at the club, or just jumping in giddy delight that Justice somehow landed an MTV Music Video Award nomination, it was a good year to dance in the streets, especially to these, my favorite albums of 2007:
1) Kanye West, Graduation
Take away his ego, and Kanye's music ceases to exist. That's because Kanye is one of a dying breed of artist, like a Bob Dylan or a Woody Allen or a Bjork, who create art out of sheer force of will and ego. Art and life aren't binaries for these people. How else to explain this album's sui generis cocktail -- a sampling of his mentors in dance (Daft Punk), street (Jay-Z), fashion (Louis Vuitton), and art (Murakami). And, I suppose, literature (Nietzsche), by pinching that particularly arch aphorism about surviving adversity. "That which does not kill me..." might suggest that Kanye's force emerges from some sort of Ayn Randian individualism, but it's more clearly the power that comes from treating your life as collage.
2) M.I.A., Kala
The '80s would have been much better if M.I.A. were around to squelch that wretched little phrase "world music" -- she would drop some street on those marketers. Although she would resist this, Maya has somehow emerged as one of the few relevant voices in the language of globalization: descriptive not prescriptive, street not studio, itinerant not stagnant, and most importantly, local not global. This is why I've written before that M.I.A. brings to mind Rem Koolhaas more than anyone else -- one can visualize her building little markets (songs) on the streets of Lagos or Sri Lanka or Kingston. That's what this album sounds like: all the streets in the world playing music at once.
3) LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver
Though James Murphy's second album will fill your daily dance-punk requirements, it's the fifth track, the ballad "All My Friends," which stands out as the best song of the year. Pretty much the exact opposite of his glib underground hit "Losing My Edge," this song starts with a cold, repetitive keyboard line that's probably pinched from some minimalistic Steve Reich score. And it never really deviates from there, except by layering some lines about friendship, which becomes the song's theme -- not about a single friend, but about the celebration of friendship as a concept. "You spend the next five years trying to get with the plan / And the next five trying to get with your friends again" has been the mantra for a couple hundred 30-somethings who I know.
4) Justice, Cross
Even though they never released an album, one could call 2007 the year of Daft Punk. Between their Coachella appearance, their movie, and Kanye creating their first Billboard hit, Daft Punk was an invisible success story. And to complete the story, we could call this the best Daft Punk album in years -- and get away with it without too much guilt.
5) Mark Ronson, Version
Prepare thyself for a strange reason to like a musician: Ronson exposes the weakness of Pitchfork. The plucky music site has been an aggressive foe of Ronson and his entourage (Amy Winehouse and Lily Allen). The reasons for this are somewhat paradoxical, since the Ronson aesthetic -- let's call it "synthetic retro" -- is usually a Pitchfork touchstone. But beyond all that industry prattle, Ronson is one of the few producers who can put together a cohesive solo album of his own. Some might tire of the ska inflections on a few tracks, but then Winehouse's cover of The Zutons' "Valerie" comes along to make you remember that synthetic nostalgia is the best kind.
6) I'm Not There, Soundtrack
Of course you want to hear Sonic Youth cover Dylan. And Malkmus, and Charlotte Gainsbourg, and The Hold Steady, and Karen O, and two discs more of this.
7) Charlotte Gainsbourg, 5:55
Did Charlotte haunt you this year? Because she haunted me. And does she remind you of a long lost love? For me, she does. Are you glad that someone finally found something decent for Air to do? Yes, me too.
8) Klaxons, Myths of the Near Future
Fuck "new rave" -- this is "new Iron Maiden"! The album has enough arcane mythology to fill the new D&D manual. If you caught Klaxons in concert this year, you witnessed this strange spectacle: teenage kids dancing around on stage with a Mello Yello high, quoting Coleridge and Pynchon, and playing their instruments like they invented them.
9) Simian Mobile Disco, Attack Decay Sustain Release
Let's get this out of the way: there's a lot bullshit on this album. Some of these tracks are the worst offenders of the reductive, repetitive, retrograde kind of techno/house that gives the entire genre a bad name. But in those moments where humanity creeps in -- on "Hustler" and "It's The Beat" -- this turns into something like the best of Bjork's dance work.
10) Battles, Mirrored
What happens when you throw another "post-" in front of "post-rock"? Prog rock! No one expected this segment of the '70s to reemerge this year, but Battles at least added a little head-shaking to the shoe-gazing genre.
11) Amy Winehouse, Back to Black
When I forgot to bring my iPod on a trip to LA this year, I bought this CD to play in the rental car. And then I turned it up every time I started to fight with the girl who was traveling with me. I now know this album by heart.
12) Britney Spears, Blackout
Yep, above Radiohead. Why? Because while Radiohead is obsessed with dystopic futures, Britney actually is the future. Like one of those fake Japanese pop idols, Brit-Bot is the complete cypher that gets invented by producers and the media. This album is like a Wikipedia entry in which everyone -- The Neptunes, TMZ, whoever -- should get a writing credit. You may not like to hear this, but Britney is you.
13) Radiohead, In Rainbows
Trent Reznor paid $5,000; I paid $5. I got a better deal.
14) Jay-Z, American Gangster
He really is the godfather now.
15) White Williams, Smoke
Since no one seems up to carrying the mantle anymore, the title of The New Bowie could be passed onto White Williams. But more than pure retread, Williams rips '70s glam through a processor that admits the existence of disco, Beck, and laptop pop.
16) The Pipettes, We Are the Pipettes
This album caused my dorky friends in San Francisco to actually dance. For getting nerds to shuffle, some might say this album should be much higher on the list.
17) Dan Deacon, Spiderman of the Rings
This is what Girl Talk would sound like if he wanted Sonic Youth to like him.
18) Prince, Planet Earth
Although I didn't make it back to Minneapolis to see him perform at First Ave this year (which was a blessing, because the cops shot it down in less than an hour), Prince put out the album that's aesthetically the closest to Purple Rain that we've seen in some time.
19) White Stripes, Icky Thump
You could almost forget that the White Stripes released an album this year.
20) Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Is Is
If it felt like Karen O spent this year trying to figure out what people wanted her to be, this EP didn't necessarily contradict that. Even its title seems obsessed with self-definition.
21) Tomahawk, Anonymous
While we wait for Michael Patton to do something a little more digestible again (We! Want! Lovage!), he put out this strange Native American Heavy Metal album.
22) Chromeo, Fancy Footwork
Ever wished Hall & Oats dabbled in disco? Then Chromeo is for you.
23) Bloc Party, Weekend in the City
Bloc Party have me hanging by a thread. I want them to have staying-power, but this could just be their last relevant album.
24) Andrew Bird, Armchair Apocrypha
I think of this album as what happens when you mash together Chicago and Minneapolis. It has the sound of Drag City, but the aesthetic of Tim. Which makes sense, because Bird is from Chicago but the album with recorded in Minneapolis with some of its finest locals.
25) Thurston Moore, Trees Outside the Academy
You know how Beck tends to alternate between doing a rock/hip-hop album and doing a down-tempo/acoustic album? This is like the response to last year's rocking Rather Ripped.
And finally, here are some albums that I tried to like this year, but it just never happened: Broken Social Scene Presents Kevin Drew - Spirit If..., Modest Mouse's We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's Some Loud Thunder, The Good, the Bad & the Queen's The Good, the Bad & the Queen, Air's Pocket Symphony, Nine Inch Nails' Year Zero, Timbaland's Timbaland Presents Shock Value, T.I.'s T.I. vs. T.I.P., 50 Cent's Curtis, Arctic Monkeys's Favourite Worst Nightmare, Amon Tobin's Foley Room, The Shins' Wincing the Night Away, The National's The Boxer, Wilco's Sky Blue Sky, Bjork's Volta, Arcade Fire's Neon Bible, Low's Drums and Guns, PJ Harvey's White Chalk, Jose Gonzalez' In Our Nature, Bruce Springsteen's Magic, Feist's The Reminder, and Les Savvy Fav's Let's Stay Friends.
Previous Yearly Music Roundups: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006.
I was actually thinking about proposing an article at the end of 2007 called "The Year of Electronica," in which I make the argument that some of the best albums of the year are direct descendants of that horrible word no one has used in a decade. LCD Soundsystem, Justice, Klaxons, Simian Mobile Disco, Chromeo, Datarock, and, if you stretch it a bit, Kanye, M.I.A., Battles, Mark Ronson. But then Slate published it. Dammit. (I like my examples better, and I would have slipped in that Kanye quote about creating a new kind of electronic hip-hop.) Noted: Idolator quibbles with some historical points.
I've been avoiding the mix that Diplo did for Pitchfork, but the moment that it mashes M.I.A., Akon, and Battles will convert you. Also, the track-by-track interview seems a completely modern phenom.
Boring trailer to the two-hour final episode of Battlestar Galactica, which doesn't air until November anyway.
It's New Releases Tuesday, with my media recommendations for the week. DVD: Mel Gibson's Apocalypto | Music: Battles' Mirrored and The National's Boxer.
My three favorite music vids right now: Tokyo Police Club, Battles, and DJ Mehdi. All awesome in their own way.
My favorite new song: "Atlas" from the band Battles whose debut album drops in May. Math rock meets post rock meets laptop mashup.
SciFi.com has launched the Battlestar Galactica Videomaker Toolkit. Use pre-existing and uploaded clips to make your own four-minute clips. These things are always better in theory than in practice, but maybe someone gets off on it...
You have to be an extraordinary fan to get into the Battlestar Galactica gag reel. Or better yet, Battlestar Veronica, which mashes up two faves.
Nerds rejoice: Number 6 is going to be in Playboy next month. I realize this is going out on a limb for our country, but I'm much more into Number 3. Phracking cylons.
What'd I do on my xmas vacation? Devoured Battlestar Galatica and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. Which is why I'm now reporting on items like a possible direct-to-DVD Battlestar Galactica movie.
Let me tell you a story.
The first couple months of college sucked. I was a pre-med student at a boring midwest state school who hung out with other boring pre-med kids from the midwest. It was like high school, except everyone wanted to be valedictorian. The best thing I could say about my doctor-to-be friends was that they were as exciting as organic chemistry.
One day, I accidentally walked into a dorm room where a couple slacker kids were on the floor playing Nintendo. Not even bothering to notice what game they were playing, I immediately focused on the poster hanging on the wall. It was a standard-issue Michael Jordan dunk shot -- the kind of poster that has no purpose other than to hang in a dorm room. Except the ingenious Nintendo players had taken a standard 8.5 x 11 piece of paper, cut a 3 x 3 hole in the center, taped it over the poster so that the hole highlighted one player in the fuzzy background on the bench beneath Jordan's splayed legs, and scribbled "Detlef Schrempf" on the poster.
I instantly knew that these guys were going to be my friends.
And now, let's have Chuck give his version:
- I met My Nemesis in November 1990. I walked into somebody's dorm room to play Nintendo, and he was sitting on the bed, holding an acoustic guitar on which he could play only one note -- the opening note of Tesla's "Love Song." He was wearing a denim jacket, and he had used a black Magic Marker to draw the symbol for anarchy on the back. It was just about the silliest thing I had ever seen. We immediately became friends.
The first story is how I remember meeting Chuck Klosterman; the second is how he tells it in his new book, Killing Yourself To Live, which officially comes out today.
I'm not here to tell you Chuck is lying about how we met. For his last book, I did a point-by-point response to what he wrote about us, and he almost seems to concede fuzzy historical remembrances this time around by subtitling the book "85% of a True Story." Actually, I might be completely wrong about what really happened. In fact, "what really happened" is probably a useless concept when discussing drunken Nintendo battles.
(But just for the record, let's get a parenthetical in here. I am resisting the temptation to tell you the 15 percent that is inaccurate in his telling of our times together -- which you can hear for yourself in this MP3 of him reading from that chapter. But again, that's not what I'm here to talk about, because, for the most part, it's "true" (especially when you put it in quotes), and whatever isn't true is better this way anyway.)
Here's where I should tell you about the book. KYTL is basically a travelogue disguised as a memoir. First devised as an article for Spin, the ostensible narrative is Chuck travelling around America and visiting the places that rock stars died -- but that's all subterfuge for reflecting on various relationships and friendships from the past (and that's all subterfuge for reflecting on life and death). When he comes to Minneapolis (in theory, to visit the place Bobby Stinson died), the book recounts how a group of music critics (plus me, "someone who probably should have been a music critic") go to the Kitty Cat Klub, drink too much, argue way too much, go back to my house, drink more, climb on the roof, and nearly kill ourselves. And yeah, there's some stuff about the fist-fights we had in college.
Now that's out of the way, so let's get back to what I wanted to say. Look at the two different stories at the top of this page -- now ask yourself this: Which story is better? In college, this was the kind of thing that Chuck and I would have argued about for a week -- not just whose story is better, but what percentage of other people would think each is better, and who told the story most economically, and which story was more historically true, and if historical accuracy even matters, and who would play the parts in the movie of this story, and what Kant thought "better" actually meant, and so on. It was completely nuts.
But it was also probably the most important time of my life. Even though there were several occasions where I literally wanted to strangle him, nowadays my emotions about Chuck are pretty simple: I think he's funny, and he only occasionally pisses me off. As for "what really happened," it's all a blur, some of it intentionally so. But I now know this: I learned more about friendship from him than anyone else in my life.
But I can still totally kick his ass.
The link farm:
Buy the book Listen to part of the book Discussed on Stereogum. On The O.C. Entertainment Weekly review KYTL being made into movie. The Dessert Island Question. Book Notes from Large-Hearted Boy
CELEB
On Gawker today, I played Santa to the celebs of 2004.
TV
Found online: Desperate Housewives T-Shirts. Including I ♥ Bree and Sex in the Suburbs.
ONLINE
Waxy has gathered an amazing collection of first-person videos from the Asian tsunami.
Question posed on Ask.Metafilter: Have you ever dated a Suicide Girl?
Long L.A. Times story on Iraqi bloggers.
FUTURE OF MEDIA
Great Future Tense interview (RealAudio) with Matt Thompson about EPIC, a vision of a personlized media source that aggregates newspapers, blogs, and social networks.
Business Week on vlogs here and here. I think we'll see scads of new video bloggers in 2005, and maybe even a celebrity or two arise out of the movement. There's now also Vloggercon 2005.
Terry Heaton on 2005: A Year of Trouble for Broadcasters.
ACADEMIA
NYT tries to grapple with the age-old newspaper look at MLA by getting all meta about it: Eggheads' Naughty Word Games. Fave paper titles this year: "t.A.T.u. You! The Global Politics of Faux Lesbian Pop" and "'Dude! Your Dress Is So Cute!' Patterns of Semantic Widening in 'Dude'."
Count me (and apparently many others in the media) among those who had no idea Susan Sontag was shacking with Annie Leibovitz for many years.
MUSIC
My pals Ross [Pioneer Press] and Melissa [City Pages] did a great episode of MPR's Midmorning (RealAudio) where they discuss their favorite albums of the year.
Steve Perry Fan Fic. Scary.
LOCAL
This has all sorts of potential: Slanderous Minneapolis, which is basically a "Minneapolis Gawker." The author appears to be anonymous.
In one of those battles you wouldn't mind if everyone dies, Nick Coleman goes after the Power Line guys.
Over at 89.3, it looks like the new station will be doing artist interviews. Could this end up being our own little KCRW?
DIGI MEDIA
Gizmodo reviews MSNtv, bascially the next generation of WebTV.
Years ago, I edited a newsstand magazine that basically reviewed websites. That genre of publishing sounds a billion years old now, but don't tell the Times Art section, which reviews music websites.
CNet has a follow-up story about the uphill battles a Netflix/TiVo partnership will face.
When I first saw the new BlackBerry, the keyboard totally confused me. Circuits finally explains the mentality behind this unique (and my guess is, ultimately flawed) 20-key keyboard.
Group investigative typography? The controversy that LittleGreenFootballs.com and PowerLine.com launched over the 60 Minutes piece (I won't try to explain it -- just go look) is fascinating group-think research even if it seems that most of the people sleuthing this together are complete morons.
FILM
New trailer to the Wes Anderson / Bill Murry flick, The Life Aquatic.
WORDS
Slate reviews graphic novel Persepolis 2 in slideshow format.
ONLINE
CNN Money has a strange slideshow of the animated characters who will appear naked in next month's Playboy.
MEDIA
SF Chroncicle tells you everything you ever wanted to know about Maureen Dowd.
PERSONAL
My pal John Lamb wrote a column about blogs this week in which he makes fun of my Amazon Wish List.
LOCAL
If you were at Mark Mallman's crazy 52.4-hour show last weekend, you witnessed one of those little pieces of Twin Cities rock history that will be recounted as often as Prince at First Ave. and Lifter Puller at the Triple Rock. David de Young has a review.
These are the 16 best albums of 2002, cuz I said so:
- Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
- Sonic Youth, Murray Street
- Boards of Canada, Geoggaddi
- Sigur Ros, ()
- Street Dad, Out Hud
- DJ Shadow, The Private Press
- Beck, Sea Change
- Low, Trust
- The Flaming Lips, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
- The Streets, Original Pirate Material
- Clinic, Walking With Thee
- Lambchop, Is A Woman
- Mum, Finally We Are No One
- Amon Tobin, Out From Out Where
- Felix da Housecat, Kittenz and Thee Glitz
- Tom Waits, Alice
And, yeah, just What Is It that makes Minnesota music critics so different, so appealing?
The Spin Year in Music issue just arrived. Here are their Top 40 Albums:
- The White Stripes, White Blood Cells
- Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
- Beck, Sea Change
- The Flaming Lips, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
- Eminem, The Eminem Show
- Weezer, Maladroit
- Missy Elliot, Under Construction
- Queens of the Stone Age, Songs for the Deaf
- N.E.R.D., In Search Of...
- The Hives, Veni Vidi Vicious
- Felix Da Housecat, Kittenz and Thee Glitz
- Sleater-Kinney, One Beat
- Jay-Z, The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse
- Bruce Springsteen, The Rising
- Tori Amoz, Scarlet's Walk
- The Roots, Phrenology
- The Streets, Original Pirate Material
- Scarface, The Fix
- DJ Shadow, The Private Press
- Bright Eyes, Lifted or the Story Is In The Soil, Keey Your Ear to the Ground
- Foo Fighters, One By One
- Sigur Ros, ()
- Drive-By Truckers, Southern Rock Opera
- Pulp, We Love Life
- Red Hot Chili Peppers, By The Way
- Coldplay, A Rush of Blood to the Head
- El-P, Fantastic Damage
- Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Yeah Yeah Yeahs
- Moby, 18
- The Soudtrack of our Lives, Behind the Music
- RJD2, Deadringer
- Interpol, Turn of the Bright Lights
- Ryan Adams, Demolition
- Audioslave, Audioslave
- Various Artists, MTV Road Rules: Don't Make Me Pull This Thing Over Vol. 1
- Steve Earle, Jerusalem
- Cody Chesnutt, The Headphone Masterpiece
- Spoon, Kill the Moonlight
- Super Furry Animals, Rings Around the World
- 2 Many DJs, As Heard on Radio Soulwax Pt. 2
When I Grow Up (video).
Gwyneth Paltrow to play Sylvia Plath in new biopic.
Netanyahu: U.S. should attack Iran with Melrose Place and Beverly Hills 90210.
New trailer: Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love (with Adam Sandler and Emily Watson).
Probably the best example of blogs as an effective medium for journalism (a phrase I've been known to cringe at) is In Search Of Al Queda, from PBS's Frontline. It's halfway into a two-month journey through the Near East. Currently, they're in Pakistan.
Fortune: 40 Richest People Under 40. Eight of the top 10 are internet/software people, and the other two are sports-related. (Master P and P. Diddy are the first entertainers on the list, at 11 and 12.)
New ads in the Apple Switch campaign. Janie Porche saved Christmas.
That Cobain house on eBay is up to $210,000.
Chuck has a long Billy Joel profile in the NY Times Mag. In college, Chuck used to try to convince me that Billy Joel was brilliant. This was hard for me to handle.
The print issue of Wired has a story about the unwired campus of Dartmouth.
I've been there.
Literary theoreticians take on The Sopranos.
The Shortlist Organization is a yearly prize created to "expose and illuminate the most creative and adventurous albums of the year." The ten finalists have just been announced: Aphex Twin's Drukqs, The Avalanches' Since I Left You, Bjork's Vespertine, Cee-Lo's Cee-Lo Green and His Perfect Imperfections, DJ Shadow's The Private Press, Doves' Last Broadcast, The Flaming Lips' Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, The Hives' Veni Vidi Vicious, N*E*R*D's In Search Of..., and Zero 7's Simple Things. (Here was the longlist.)
I'll be AWOL from here the next couple days, preparing for this, where I'll be speaking under two topics: webcams as media devices and the future of flash. In the endless hours of freetime that you'll have because of my absence, consider playing a few rounds of Battleship.
Worst-Case Scenario debuts on TBS tonight. My pally Garmen worked on the show. The New York Post destroyed it.
