There were 64 entries found with "bjork":
thursday
Fifteen things that intrigue me right now:
1) You Say You Want a Devolution? Here's an interesting thesis from Kurt Anderson in Vanity Fair: While there have been massive technological changes in the past 20 years, everything looks the same. That is, he suggests, if you looked at a random snapshot from 1991, the people and buildings and cultural objects would mostly look the same as today. So? Well, that certainly isn't true if you looked at 1931 to 1951 or 1951 to 1971. This is one of the broad cultural essays that "seems right" though I'm not sure why.
2) The .xxx top-level domain went live yesterday. You will know it when you see it.
3) Who's Afraid Of Lana Del Rey? I'm glad someone wrote this, but isn't the artifice of "authenticity" itself the bugbear to be slayed?
4) Fast Co Design. Fast Company has a design blog that tries "to bridge the fuzzy border between design and business."
5) New Walker Website. Waaaay back in the day, The Walker was one of the earliest organizations (and for sure, the first museum) to take up blogging, but the effort seemed to only get partial internal support. Last week, a site redesign revisited the idea of museum as a locus for content generation (or "idea hub"). Congrats, Schmelzer, nice work. (See also: The Atlantic and Artlog discuss the redesign.)
6) The Bitter Email Exchange between David Denby and Scott Rudin over the Review Embargo of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Rudin missed such a great opportunity to use a scathing Subject line!
7) Aaron Sorkin's New Project: Newsroom. People who say they aren't excited for this are lying.
8) Bjork's Favorite Recordings.
9) The Utne Reader to Leave Minneapolis. Sad. I used to have an office across the street from these guys in Loring Park.
10) JimRomenesko.com. Hello there, old timer!
11) Barney Frank's Best Insults.
12) Richard Lawson in Atlantic Wire. How fast did this become the best writing online? In just weeks, we've received thought pieces like When Fans Attack and movie reviews that read like the best of the New Yorker (so: Anthony Lane not David Denby), while still satisfying us in that off-hand impulsive bloggy way. (See also, this post on Gawker that isn't at all about Lawson but somehow the commenters turned it into a rally cry.)
13) The Trailer to Shame.
14) @FAKEGRIMLOCK.
15) Paste's 50 Best Songs of 2011.
tuesday
A new book will feature Marco Anelli's photos of everyone who sat with Marina Abramovic during "The Artist is Present" at MoMA this year. So that'll be a little of Bjork, a little of Franco, and a lot of that annoying crying dude (and the much less annoying girl in disguises). [via Gothamist]
tuesday
An update from yesterday's post, some stuff I watched on MTVMusic.com today:
"Sunday" by Sonic Youth
"C.R.E.A.M." by Wu-Tang Clan
"Naughty Girls" by Samantha Fox
"Africa" by Toto
"Ring the Alarm" by Beyonce
"Atmosphere" by Joy Division
"Only Shallow" by My Bloody Valentine
"Juicy" by Notorious B.I.G.
"99 Problems" by Jay-Z
"Come To Daddy" by Aphex Twin
"Knives Out" by Radiohead
"Protection" by Massive Attack
"We Share Our Mothers' Health" by The Knife
"Leave It" by Yes
"Rich Girls" by The Virgins
"Tom Sawyer" by Rush
"Willing To Wait" by Sebadoh
"Shady Lane" by Pavement
"Stratford-On-Guy" by Liz Phair
"Just Dance" by Lady Gaga
"Don't Bring Me Down" by ELO
"Is It Love" by Gang of Four
"Like a Virgin" by Madonna
"Whatever You Like" by T.I.
"Space Oddity" by David Bowie,
"Smooth Up" by Bulletboys
"Bathroom Wall" by Faster Pussycat
"Galang" by MIA
"Got Money" by Lil Wayne
"Mama Weer All Crazee Now" by The Runaways
"Feel The Pain" by Dinosaur Jr.
"Y Control" by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
"Connection" by Elastica
"LES Artistes" by Santogold
"Last Night" by The Strokes
"Subterranean Homesick Blues" by Bob Dylan
"Just Like Honey" by The Jesus & Mary Chain
"The Ledge" by The Replacements
"Kick It" by Peaches
"Shoplifters of The World Unite" by The Smiths
"Nude as the News" by Cat Power
"All Is Full Of Love" by Bjork
"Frontin'" by Pharrell Williams
"Girls And Boys" by Prince
"Rusty Cage" by Johnny Cash
"Holy Diver" by Dio
"Pet Cemetary" by The Ramones
"Talk Talk" by Talk Talk
"Crimson and Clover" by Joan Jett
"Peace Sells" by Megadeth
"Mother" by Danzig
"Rapture" by Blondie
"Raining Blood" by Slayer
"Rise" by Public Image Ltd.
"20th Century Boy" by T. Rex
"Victoria" by The Fall
"One Word" by Brian Eno
"Ziggy Stardust" by Bauhaus
"It Was a Good Day" by Ice Cube
"Don't Want To Know If You Are Lonely" by Husker Du
monday
10 Top Music Videos Made By Artists: Classic (Blondie, Yoko, Eno, etc.) and Contemporary (Deerhoof, Bjork, Beck, etc.).
wednesday
This was a big deal in 1994, but it's practically forgotten now: "Satisfaction" covered by Bjork & PJ Harvey.
tuesday
NYT video: Bjork in 3-D: Making the "Wanderlust" Video. Shocker! -- mushrooms were involved.
monday
A new addition to the canon of totally weird Bjork videos: "Wanderlust". (See also: Stereogum's cover album of Post, with tracks by Xiu Xiu, Liars, Dirty Projectors, etc.)
wednesday
Just when you thought about giving up on Bjork, along came her new video for "Declare Independence," directed by (doy) Michel Gondry.
wednesday
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
tuesday
Two unrelated-yet-strangely-related new releases that drop today: Bjork's Volta and Murakami's After Dark.
sunday
Bjork performing "Earth Intruders" last night on SNL. The music video of the same song. (I'm afraid to say my girl has lost it.)
tuesday
The line-up for Sasquatch (May 26-27) has been announced, including Bjork, The Arcade Fire, M.I.A., The Hold Steady, Grizzly Bear, Beastie Boys, Interpol, Bad Brains, Dandy Warhols, and Tokyo Police Club. So who's coming to visit me in Seattle this summer?
tuesday
The new album from Noriko Tujiko is out today. I'm going to call her a Japanese version of Bjork, and then run for Mount Fuji, leaving behind only a video link.
monday
Can you think of anything more perfect than the idea of Bjork and Timbaland making an album together?
monday
For me, 2006 was the year of inconsequential hype. Wasn't this the year of Snakes on a Plane? And what ever happened to Pearl Jam's big comeback? And weren't The Raconteurs s'posed to be the best rock band ever? And don't even get me started on what the bloggers were telling you to like. Whatevah, you were too busy watching Journey on YouTube to care.
Despite the odds, this was a pretty good year in music. I've got 21 albums to prove it:
21) The Coup, Pick a Bigger Weapon
No one realized it at the time, but Party Music was probably the most important album of 2001 -- but like everything else after 9/11, it had to be sublimated for a few years. Boots Riley returned this year to "laugh, love, and make love" -- while wearing camo. When the apocalypse comes, you know The Coup will be playing the soundtrack.
20) Peeping Tom, Peeping Tom
The cast of characters alone -- Norah Jones, Amon Tobin, Kool Keith, Dan the Automator, Massive Attack, Kid Koala -- make this a seductive record. But even after the novelty wears off, Mike Patton's obstinate weirdness and whispering/screaming vocals make this album continually engaging, if not terminally perverse.
19) Be Your Own Pet, Be Your Own Pet
This is the kind of punk rock that your pre/post-cool skater friend in high school liked but you didn't understand. Then she made a mixed tape for you with a noisy mess called "Fuuuuuuun" on it, and even though it included a wink to "Stairway to Heaven" you still didn't understand, but you adored her for playing a song called "Fuuuuuuun" -- I mean, how couldn't you?
18) Sparklehorse, Dreamt For Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain
I have no idea why people ignored this album, but I predict the hipsters will trackback to this release next year when DJ Danger Mouse and Mark Linkous collaborate on something called Dangerhorse (I'm not making this up). Linkous makes the kind of raspy pop static that everyone has forgotten is the reason that recorded music still exists.
16) Cold War Kids, Robbers and Cowards
The first four songs on this debut record are so ridiculously good that it makes you suspicious of their ability to maintain it, which causes you to unfairly judge them on the potential of future work that you've never heard, which is grossly unjust, but is also the strange state of music today.
15) Bob Dylan, Modern Times
He hates technology more than your grandma, but that's probably why he makes albums better than your kids.
14) Joanna Newsome, Ys
This will take a moment to digest: Diamanda Galas meets Bjork and June Carter Cash in a dark alley. They magically morph into a harpist who makes an album engineered by Steve Albini that has only five songs but is still an hour long. And yet you love it.
13) The DFA Remixes, Chapter 1 & Chapter 2
No one asked for another version of Fischerspooner's "Emerge" or NIN's "The Hand that Feeds," but you couldn't pick anyone better than DFA to reconstitute nostalgia as futurism.
12) Tapes 'n Tapes, The Loon
It's the strangest thing in the world to leave town and watch your friend's band explode like this. One second you're playing Katamari Damacy and listening to GNR, the next they're trying to get time off work to tour Japan.
11) Ghostface Killah, Fishscale
If you didn't know, fishscale is super-high quality uncut cocaine -- sparkly and glimmering like a fish's scales. This album is singularly obsessed with coke -- kilos and bricks, snorted and smoked -- all of it, in multiple different forms, which you can view as a metaphor of quality or race or economics... or not.
9) Girl Talk, Night Ripper
One ritalin-and-coffee-induced diatribe about how this album is perfectly of its time yet paradoxically timeless is more than enough.
8) Arctic Monkeys, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
Just when you think the dance rock thing has hit the windshield, along comes the best of the genre -- from a bunch of kids slamming on the gas pedal, no less. Two of the songs on this album include the word "dance," yet they're the least danceable songs on the album.
7) Sonic Youth, Rather Ripped
The only thing that makes less sense than these old-timers writing what might be the most relevant love song of the year ("Do You Believe in Rapture?") might be the same fogies writing the best rock song of the year ("Incinerate"). "Do you believe in a second chance?" Totally.
6) The Streets, The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living
At the beginning of the year, Mike Skinner was in rehab; at the end of the year, he was preparing to run the New York City marathon. This sums up The Streets -- slacking yet overachieving, a bad decision that always turns good, a big story yet a complete fuck up.
5) Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Show Your Bones
I'm likely rating this album higher than almost anyone else will this year, but it probably deserves even higher. Why do you all hate Karen O for wanting to make a Blondie record? Sometimes I think you're bigger than the sound, too.
4) Mickey Avalon, Mickey Avalon
Rock critics fucking hate Mickey Avalon -- my friend Missy thinks he's egotistical scum. But this is my kind of punk-rapping scum bag: he stylizes like Kool Keith, he narrates like Eminem, he snags the aesthetics of L.A. glam rock (but bi), and packages it all like Beck-on-meth-not-Beck-on-scientology. And despite that description, he sounds absolutely nothing like Kid Rock!
3) TV on the Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain
Can you imagine the pitch to the record label? "Okay, we're gonna make a doo-wop punk album. But it won't sound anything like that. It will sound more like a lazy day in the Prospect Park. Oh, but you can sorta dance to it. Got it?"
2) Gnarls Barkley, St. Elsewhere
The second you heard it, you knew it was going to be the song of the summer. By the second bar, you could visualize the sin wave over the next couple months: the pre-buzz, the raves, the saturation, the backlash, the overhype, and the backlash to the backlash (because you read NY Mag too). It was a crystal clear moment, which so many will remember as defining the summer of '06, when everything seemed to have a thrilling predictability.
1) The Hold Steady, Boys and Girls in America
During a year that I moved away from the Midwest, no other record could possibly top this list. I'm not sure what non-expats do with all the Lyndale, Penn, and Nicolet references (cross-check them to their Replacements records?), but this will always be one of those records that will be impossibly linked to my life in mysterious ways that make me equal parts sad and hopeful. Every time Craig roars "We walked across that Grain Belt bridge / Into a brand new Minneapolis," I wonder why every city can't be so lucky as to have such a perferct homage. And then I remember only one city deserves it. I miss ya, boys and girls.
This Year's Disappointments:
Flaming Lips, At War with the Mystics, Emily Haines, Knives Don't Have Your Back, DJ Shadow, The Outsider, Thom Yorke, The Eraser, Beck, The Information, Outkast, Idlewild, Nellie McKay, Pretty Little Head, Lily Allen, Alright, Still, The Raconteurs, Broken Boy Soldiers, Beyonce, B'day, Bjork, Drawing Restraint 9, Peaches, Impeach My Bush, Morrissey, Ringleader of the Tormentors, Prince, 3121, Kool Keith, Nogatco Rd.
sunday
A gigantic Bjork box set comes out tomorrow.
sunday
TOYS
GenPets. For real.
FILM
Clerks 2 trailer.
Anton Corbjin is directing a movie about Joy Division: Control.
I noticed that A Scanner Darkly has an elaborate MySpace page. I wonder if they had to pay for the special treatment or if they just hacked it.
MUSIC
A gigantic Bjork box set comes out tomorrow.
Vice: How To Make A Playlist For A Girl. Condescending as fuck, but funny as hell.
WORDS
The Nerve.com Future Issue, which will feature writing from Joel Stein, Walter Kirn, Jay McInerney, Douglas Rushkoff, Rick Moody, Ana Marie Cox, and others.
Updike jumps up and down like a baby (an eloquent baby, I suppose) over Kevin Kelly's NYT Mag book story from a several weeks ago.
TV
Screens (Virginia Heffernan!) is a new tv/internet convergence blog on... yep, NYtimes.com. I'm calling it a "Lost Remote killer." (Sorry Cory, I kid.)
Robot Chicken is on DVD? How come no one told me?
ONLINE
Wikipedia: List of problems solved by MacGyver.
I'm not on Second Life yet, though I know I should be. I've been watching the site pretty closely for years, and it's fascinating that it's finally taking off, though I have no idea why now. Anyway, there's some reportage that Amazon.com is planning on extending their web services to support virtual stores within Second Life.
Finally, a reason to wed.
DRINK
I wonder what would happen if I tried to drink only beverages from Amazon's Sports & Energy Drink grocery category.
ARCHITECTURE
Believe it or not, I've actually read every single Zaha Hadid story over the past few weeks (her Guggenheim retrospective has created more press than anything since Bilbao). The only one I'll bother linking to is Slate's contrarian is she really visionary?
T-SHIRTS
[Broken Image]
sunday
ONLINE
The best update of Hot Or Not of all time: Fuck Kill Marry.
The cure for illegal immigration? Webcams, of course.
TV
Typography brought down Dan Rather -- could it reveal the answers to Lost too?
NEWS
Snakes on a plane! Snakes on a plane! (But real.)
FILM
Remnick on Gore in the New Yorker.
Winona has reunited with director of Heathers for something called Sex and Death 101.
Apple on the use of Keynote in An Inconvenient Truth. A design firm actually helped him with the powerpoint.... er, keynote.
Trailer to another off-beat, quirky, indie comedy! Little Miss Sunshine, starring Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear.
T-SHIRTS
McSweeney's Lists: Comeback T-shirts, For "I'm With Stupid" T-shirts.
Boston Globe: On t-shirts and celebrity, aka art and copyright.
GAMES
So at some point I'm going to start reading Future of the Book's experimental collaborative book project on gaming, GAM3R 7H3ORY. But here's the hard question: when do I start? By the very nature of the project, it is never done. More thoughts on Future of the Book.
BOOKS
Slate's JPod review.
MUSIC
Bjork in Street Fighter.
SPORTS
Both Klosterman and Gladwell use Kevin Garnett as important instances of different quasi-economic principles.
sunday
ONLINE
The best update of Hot Or Not of all time: Fuck Kill Marry.
The cure for illegal immigration? Webcams, of course.
TV
Typography brought down Dan Rather -- could it reveal the answers to Lost too?
NEWS
Snakes on a plane! Snakes on a plane! (But real.)
FILM
Remnick on Gore in the New Yorker.
Winona has reunited with director of Heathers for something called Sex and Death 101.
Apple on the use of Keynote in An Inconvenient Truth. A design firm actually helped him with the powerpoint.... er, keynote.
Trailer to another off-beat, quirky, indie comedy! Little Miss Sunshine, starring Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear.
T-SHIRTS
McSweeney's Lists: Comeback T-shirts, For "I'm With Stupid" T-shirts.
Boston Globe: On t-shirts and celebrity, aka art and copyright.
GAMES
So at some point I'm going to start reading Future of the Book's experimental collaborative book project on gaming, GAM3R 7H3ORY. But here's the hard question: when do I start? By the very nature of the project, it is never done. More thoughts on Future of the Book.
BOOKS
Slate's JPod review.
MUSIC
Bjork in Street Fighter.
SPORTS
Both Klosterman and Gladwell use Kevin Garnett as important instances of different quasi-economic principles.
sunday
ONLINE
The best update of Hot Or Not of all time: Fuck Kill Marry.
The cure for illegal immigration? Webcams, of course.
TV
Typography brought down Dan Rather -- could it reveal the answers to Lost too?
NEWS
Snakes on a plane! Snakes on a plane! (But real.)
FILM
Remnick on Gore in the New Yorker.
Winona has reunited with director of Heathers for something called Sex and Death 101.
Apple on the use of Keynote in An Inconvenient Truth. A design firm actually helped him with the powerpoint.... er, keynote.
Trailer to another off-beat, quirky, indie comedy! Little Miss Sunshine, starring Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear.
T-SHIRTS
McSweeney's Lists: Comeback T-shirts, For "I'm With Stupid" T-shirts.
Boston Globe: On t-shirts and celebrity, aka art and copyright.
GAMES
So at some point I'm going to start reading Future of the Book's experimental collaborative book project on gaming, GAM3R 7H3ORY. But here's the hard question: when do I start? By the very nature of the project, it is never done. More thoughts on Future of the Book.
BOOKS
Slate's JPod review.
MUSIC
Bjork in Street Fighter.
SPORTS
Both Klosterman and Gladwell use Kevin Garnett as important instances of different quasi-economic principles.
sunday
ONLINE
The best update of Hot Or Not of all time: Fuck Kill Marry.
The cure for illegal immigration? Webcams, of course.
TV
Typography brought down Dan Rather -- could it reveal the answers to Lost too?
NEWS
Snakes on a plane! Snakes on a plane! (But real.)
FILM
Remnick on Gore in the New Yorker.
Winona has reunited with director of Heathers for something called Sex and Death 101.
Apple on the use of Keynote in An Inconvenient Truth. A design firm actually helped him with the powerpoint.... er, keynote.
Trailer to another off-beat, quirky, indie comedy! Little Miss Sunshine, starring Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear.
T-SHIRTS
McSweeney's Lists: Comeback T-shirts, For "I'm With Stupid" T-shirts.
Boston Globe: On t-shirts and celebrity, aka art and copyright.
GAMES
So at some point I'm going to start reading Future of the Book's experimental collaborative book project on gaming, GAM3R 7H3ORY. But here's the hard question: when do I start? By the very nature of the project, it is never done. More thoughts on Future of the Book.
BOOKS
Slate's JPod review.
MUSIC
Bjork in Street Fighter.
SPORTS
Both Klosterman and Gladwell use Kevin Garnett as important instances of different quasi-economic principles.
sunday
ONLINE
The best update of Hot Or Not of all time: Fuck Kill Marry.
The cure for illegal immigration? Webcams, of course.
TV
Typography brought down Dan Rather -- could it reveal the answers to Lost too?
NEWS
Snakes on a plane! Snakes on a plane! (But real.)
FILM
Remnick on Gore in the New Yorker.
Winona has reunited with director of Heathers for something called Sex and Death 101.
Apple on the use of Keynote in An Inconvenient Truth. A design firm actually helped him with the powerpoint.... er, keynote.
Trailer to another off-beat, quirky, indie comedy! Little Miss Sunshine, starring Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear.
T-SHIRTS
McSweeney's Lists: Comeback T-shirts, For "I'm With Stupid" T-shirts.
Boston Globe: On t-shirts and celebrity, aka art and copyright.
GAMES
So at some point I'm going to start reading Future of the Book's experimental collaborative book project on gaming, GAM3R 7H3ORY. But here's the hard question: when do I start? By the very nature of the project, it is never done. More thoughts on Future of the Book.
BOOKS
Slate's JPod review.
MUSIC
Bjork in Street Fighter.
SPORTS
Both Klosterman and Gladwell use Kevin Garnett as important instances of different quasi-economic principles.
sunday
ONLINE
The best update of Hot Or Not of all time: Fuck Kill Marry.
The cure for illegal immigration? Webcams, of course.
TV
Typography brought down Dan Rather -- could it reveal the answers to Lost too?
NEWS
Snakes on a plane! Snakes on a plane! (But real.)
FILM
Remnick on Gore in the New Yorker.
Winona has reunited with director of Heathers for something called Sex and Death 101.
Apple on the use of Keynote in An Inconvenient Truth. A design firm actually helped him with the powerpoint.... er, keynote.
Trailer to another off-beat, quirky, indie comedy! Little Miss Sunshine, starring Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear.
T-SHIRTS
McSweeney's Lists: Comeback T-shirts, For "I'm With Stupid" T-shirts.
Boston Globe: On t-shirts and celebrity, aka art and copyright.
GAMES
So at some point I'm going to start reading Future of the Book's experimental collaborative book project on gaming, GAM3R 7H3ORY. But here's the hard question: when do I start? By the very nature of the project, it is never done. More thoughts on Future of the Book.
BOOKS
Slate's JPod review.
MUSIC
Bjork in Street Fighter.
SPORTS
Both Klosterman and Gladwell use Kevin Garnett as important instances of different quasi-economic principles.
sunday
ONLINE
The best update of Hot Or Not of all time: Fuck Kill Marry.
The cure for illegal immigration? Webcams, of course.
TV
Typography brought down Dan Rather -- could it reveal the answers to Lost too?
NEWS
Snakes on a plane! Snakes on a plane! (But real.)
FILM
Remnick on Gore in the New Yorker.
Winona has reunited with director of Heathers for something called Sex and Death 101.
Apple on the use of Keynote in An Inconvenient Truth. A design firm actually helped him with the powerpoint.... er, keynote.
Trailer to another off-beat, quirky, indie comedy! Little Miss Sunshine, starring Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear.
T-SHIRTS
McSweeney's Lists: Comeback T-shirts, For "I'm With Stupid" T-shirts.
Boston Globe: On t-shirts and celebrity, aka art and copyright.
GAMES
So at some point I'm going to start reading Future of the Book's experimental collaborative book project on gaming, GAM3R 7H3ORY. But here's the hard question: when do I start? By the very nature of the project, it is never done. More thoughts on Future of the Book.
BOOKS
Slate's JPod review.
MUSIC
Bjork in Street Fighter.
SPORTS
Both Klosterman and Gladwell use Kevin Garnett as important instances of different quasi-economic principles.
sunday
ONLINE
The best update of Hot Or Not of all time: Fuck Kill Marry.
The cure for illegal immigration? Webcams, of course.
TV
Typography brought down Dan Rather -- could it reveal the answers to Lost too?
NEWS
Snakes on a plane! Snakes on a plane! (But real.)
FILM
Remnick on Gore in the New Yorker.
Winona has reunited with director of Heathers for something called Sex and Death 101.
Apple on the use of Keynote in An Inconvenient Truth. A design firm actually helped him with the powerpoint.... er, keynote.
Trailer to another off-beat, quirky, indie comedy! Little Miss Sunshine, starring Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear.
T-SHIRTS
McSweeney's Lists: Comeback T-shirts, For "I'm With Stupid" T-shirts.
Boston Globe: On t-shirts and celebrity, aka art and copyright.
GAMES
So at some point I'm going to start reading Future of the Book's experimental collaborative book project on gaming, GAM3R 7H3ORY. But here's the hard question: when do I start? By the very nature of the project, it is never done. More thoughts on Future of the Book.
BOOKS
Slate's JPod review.
MUSIC
Bjork in Street Fighter.
SPORTS
Both Klosterman and Gladwell use Kevin Garnett as important instances of different quasi-economic principles.
sunday
ONLINE
The best update of Hot Or Not of all time: Fuck Kill Marry.
The cure for illegal immigration? Webcams, of course.
TV
Typography brought down Dan Rather -- could it reveal the answers to Lost too?
NEWS
Snakes on a plane! Snakes on a plane! (But real.)
FILM
Remnick on Gore in the New Yorker.
Winona has reunited with director of Heathers for something called Sex and Death 101.
Apple on the use of Keynote in An Inconvenient Truth. A design firm actually helped him with the powerpoint.... er, keynote.
Trailer to another off-beat, quirky, indie comedy! Little Miss Sunshine, starring Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear.
T-SHIRTS
McSweeney's Lists: Comeback T-shirts, For "I'm With Stupid" T-shirts.
Boston Globe: On t-shirts and celebrity, aka art and copyright.
GAMES
So at some point I'm going to start reading Future of the Book's experimental collaborative book project on gaming, GAM3R 7H3ORY. But here's the hard question: when do I start? By the very nature of the project, it is never done. More thoughts on Future of the Book.
BOOKS
Slate's JPod review.
MUSIC
Bjork in Street Fighter.
SPORTS
Both Klosterman and Gladwell use Kevin Garnett as important instances of different quasi-economic principles.
sunday
ONLINE
The best update of Hot Or Not of all time: Fuck Kill Marry.
The cure for illegal immigration? Webcams, of course.
TV
Typography brought down Dan Rather -- could it reveal the answers to Lost too?
NEWS
Snakes on a plane! Snakes on a plane! (But real.)
FILM
Remnick on Gore in the New Yorker.
Winona has reunited with director of Heathers for something called Sex and Death 101.
Apple on the use of Keynote in An Inconvenient Truth. A design firm actually helped him with the powerpoint.... er, keynote.
Trailer to another off-beat, quirky, indie comedy! Little Miss Sunshine, starring Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear.
T-SHIRTS
McSweeney's Lists: Comeback T-shirts, For "I'm With Stupid" T-shirts.
Boston Globe: On t-shirts and celebrity, aka art and copyright.
GAMES
So at some point I'm going to start reading Future of the Book's experimental collaborative book project on gaming, GAM3R 7H3ORY. But here's the hard question: when do I start? By the very nature of the project, it is never done. More thoughts on Future of the Book.
BOOKS
Slate's JPod review.
MUSIC
Bjork in Street Fighter.
SPORTS
Both Klosterman and Gladwell use Kevin Garnett as important instances of different quasi-economic principles.
sunday
ONLINE
The best update of Hot Or Not of all time: Fuck Kill Marry.
The cure for illegal immigration? Webcams, of course.
TV
Typography brought down Dan Rather -- could it reveal the answers to Lost too?
NEWS
Snakes on a plane! Snakes on a plane! (But real.)
FILM
Remnick on Gore in the New Yorker.
Winona has reunited with director of Heathers for something called Sex and Death 101.
Apple on the use of Keynote in An Inconvenient Truth. A design firm actually helped him with the powerpoint.... er, keynote.
Trailer to another off-beat, quirky, indie comedy! Little Miss Sunshine, starring Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear.
T-SHIRTS
McSweeney's Lists: Comeback T-shirts, For "I'm With Stupid" T-shirts.
Boston Globe: On t-shirts and celebrity, aka art and copyright.
GAMES
So at some point I'm going to start reading Future of the Book's experimental collaborative book project on gaming, GAM3R 7H3ORY. But here's the hard question: when do I start? By the very nature of the project, it is never done. More thoughts on Future of the Book.
BOOKS
Slate's JPod review.
MUSIC
Bjork in Street Fighter.
SPORTS
Both Klosterman and Gladwell use Kevin Garnett as important instances of different quasi-economic principles.
sunday
ONLINE
The best update of Hot Or Not of all time: Fuck Kill Marry.
The cure for illegal immigration? Webcams, of course.
TV
Typography brought down Dan Rather -- could it reveal the answers to Lost too?
NEWS
Snakes on a plane! Snakes on a plane! (But real.)
FILM
Remnick on Gore in the New Yorker.
Winona has reunited with director of Heathers for something called Sex and Death 101.
Apple on the use of Keynote in An Inconvenient Truth. A design firm actually helped him with the powerpoint.... er, keynote.
Trailer to another off-beat, quirky, indie comedy! Little Miss Sunshine, starring Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear.
T-SHIRTS
McSweeney's Lists: Comeback T-shirts, For "I'm With Stupid" T-shirts.
Boston Globe: On t-shirts and celebrity, aka art and copyright.
GAMES
So at some point I'm going to start reading Future of the Book's experimental collaborative book project on gaming, GAM3R 7H3ORY. But here's the hard question: when do I start? By the very nature of the project, it is never done. More thoughts on Future of the Book.
BOOKS
Slate's JPod review.
MUSIC
Bjork in Street Fighter.
SPORTS
Both Klosterman and Gladwell use Kevin Garnett as important instances of different quasi-economic principles.
sunday
ONLINE
The best update of Hot Or Not of all time: Fuck Kill Marry.
The cure for illegal immigration? Webcams, of course.
TV
Typography brought down Dan Rather -- could it reveal the answers to Lost too?
NEWS
Snakes on a plane! Snakes on a plane! (But real.)
FILM
Remnick on Gore in the New Yorker.
Winona has reunited with director of Heathers for something called Sex and Death 101.
Apple on the use of Keynote in An Inconvenient Truth. A design firm actually helped him with the powerpoint.... er, keynote.
Trailer to another off-beat, quirky, indie comedy! Little Miss Sunshine, starring Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear.
T-SHIRTS
McSweeney's Lists: Comeback T-shirts, For "I'm With Stupid" T-shirts.
Boston Globe: On t-shirts and celebrity, aka art and copyright.
GAMES
So at some point I'm going to start reading Future of the Book's experimental collaborative book project on gaming, GAM3R 7H3ORY. But here's the hard question: when do I start? By the very nature of the project, it is never done. More thoughts on Future of the Book.
BOOKS
Slate's JPod review.
MUSIC
Bjork in Street Fighter.
SPORTS
Both Klosterman and Gladwell use Kevin Garnett as important instances of different quasi-economic principles.
monday
TV
The single best piece of tv in 2006 so far has been SNL's TV Funhouse take on Disney. Which leads to the question: why isn't TV Funhouse available on DVD? (SNL will be airing a "Best Of" special on April 29.)
MAGAZINES
Diesel Sweeties on the music magazine.
Magazine Death Pool (dot-com).
NOSTALGIA
Do you remember Bill Paxton and Judge Reinhold being in the video to Pat Benatar's "Shadow of the Night"? And that it has a Nazi theme? And that it has Pat as a Dancer In The Dark-era Bjork-like character fantasizing in a Rosie the Riveter get-up? Is this really what the '80s were like?
Kerouac on The Steve Allen Show, interviewed by William F. Buckley, and eulogized by Walter Cronkite. Is this really what the '60s were like?
SODA
I'm obsessed with Coke Blak in the same way I was obsessed with OK Soda.
FILM
Trailer to The Fountain, Aronofsky's newest.
Best Week Ever wants to know if The Legend of Simon Conjurer (starring Jon Voight) is an elaborate hoax. Trailer.
ONLINE
Webcam vids have truly gone postmodern: Watching Norna (NYT) and Webcam Girls Gone Wild.
MySpace, what have you wrought? "thanks for the add you guys rock".
MAPS
Religious Maps.
CITIES
Last time I was in San Francisco, I hung out in a nearly vacant South Park, which now is filling up again.
For the archive, last week's NYT Mag analysis of North Dakota.
sunday
Why lie, I need a beer. Correction: why lie, this is a link blog. As of today. Again.
FILM
Encyclopedia of Lesbian Movie Scenes.
The Strangers with Candy movie appears to be no more, which is odd because Stephen Colbert and Amy Sedaris are pretty much at the top of their game right now.
MUSIC
Bjork's soundtrack to Barney's Drawing Restraint 9 comes out Aug. 23. There's also an import.
WORDS
NYT calls Brett Easton Ellis "The Man in the Mirror." His new book, Lunar Park, comes out next week.
GAMES
Busting open machinima to the masses, the NYT Mag: The Xbox Auteurs.
TV
If you heard that HBO's Entourage was good, here's your chance to judge for yourself.
MUSIC
Cool (literally) Ladytron video.
T-SHIRTS
Freakonomics t-shirts.
GADGETS
It's been a long while (a whole year!) since I cared about new cellphones, but the Treo 670 running on Windows Mobile is intriguing.
BLOGGING
So Microsoft is back in the content game? Color me confused! Filter is apparently a blog network. After poking around at them for a bit, I can't even get into how horribly executed they are.
And I have no comment on that thing in Gawker, Current.TV, or Robert Novak.
wednesday
ART
Finally! Bjork and Matthew Barney are working on a project together: Drawing Restraint 9.
ONLINE
Good stuff: EFF's Legal Guide for Bloggers.
The winners of the Contagious Media showdown have been announced.
GAMES
McSweeney's: Top Three Things Q*Bert Is Pissed About.
Pac-Man turns 25.
FILM
The 30th Anniversary DVD of Jaws came out yesterday.
Huffington Report: Errol Morris interview.
MUSIC
This week's new releases? Oh, alright: Foo Fighters, Dwight Yoakam, and Pernice Brothers.
WORDS
Wonkette's novel, Dog Days, is now available on pre-order on Amazon (though it's not out until 2006). Oooh, read the description -- looks like there are some roman à clef opportunities there.
The Anarchist Cookbook author disavows his book on Amazon.
tuesday
WORDS
Awesome: List of fictional curse words.
Common Errors in English.
McSweeney's: Pickup Lines: The First Drafts.
Random House: Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers Contest.
ONLINE
Best CNN.com homepage ever.
Best TV promo ever.
First indication [?] of who's behind Blogebrity.
I haven't been following Podcasting on this site, but I found it odd that TV Guide is now podcasting.
MUSIC
That immensely annoying frog song is at the top of the British charts.
Kaleefa Sanneh sings the praises of the new White Stripes.
New releases today: A Bjork remix and covers album, a new Oasis (which is getting a surprising amount of attention), and a new Smog.
New Yorker: The Record Effect.
In Spin, Chuck dissects music genres. "IDM: This is an acronym for 'Intelligent Dance Music.' Really. No, really. I'm serious. This is what they call it. Really."
Nerve.com: Sex Advice from Accordion Players.
TV
The first and second seasons of Moonlighting came out on DVD today.
TVsquad interviews Kendra from The Apprentice, who will be heading down to Palm Beach to oversee construction of a new Trump mansion, and according to this Palm Beach Post story, taking a salary cut.
FILM
New Wallace & Gromit trailer.
A lucious six-flick Steve McQueen box set came out today. Makes me want to watch Bullitt right now.
Oliver Stone Arrested on Drug, DUI Charges.
MEDIA
Are you reading NYT's series on Class? Here's a fun interactive graphic showing how much class you have.
Kurt Andersen thinks Radar looks just a wee bit like another magazine from the '80s.
BOOKS
Bookforum: Pynchon From A to V.
NYT Styles this week looks at the glut of sex-themed books, which I won't say a thing about because I know at least two girls writing these.
I don't know if anyone is reading Umberto Eco's new book, but here's a profile of him in the Telegraph.
Orson Scott Card Has Always Been an Asshat.
monday
CONSUMPTION
The Scrolling Belt Buckle is friggin brilliant.
A friend of mine worked on the market research for the new prescription bottle that Target is hoping will turn pharmaceuticals into destination shopping.
Another new viral campaign from BK, this time in the form of a game: NeedForFeed.com. No relation to MailOrderChickens.com.
MUSIC
The reverse of the censored album, these versions of NWA's "Straight Outta Compton" and "Fuck the Police" are the bomb.
TECH
Put away the rumors about Microsoft owning Flash, cuz Adobe is buying Macromedia.
TV
So best. Jimmy Kimmel is hiring for a "TV Watcher" who will watch the tube all day looking for the best clips for the show. If a blogger doesn't get the job, something's wrong.
Anderson Cooper Fan Blog. [via]
In a little ditty about ending the whodunit on Veronica Mars, this story also says UPN has renewed the show for a second season.
FILM
Trailer to the new Gus Van San movie, Last Days, a fictional account of the demise of Kurt Cobain that includes appearances by Kim Gordon and Harmony Korine.
Interview with EW's long-time film critic Owen Gleiberman.
MUSIC VIDEOS
"The Sad Song", "created entirely using 15 second jpg movies from my little Nikon Coolpix 775 still camera, reconstructed in AfterEffects."
WORD GAMES
The 20-question What Kind of American English Do You Speak? says I'm 75% General American English, 15% Upper Midwestern, 10% Yankee, 0% Dixie, and 0% Midwestern.
Slate on how Trivial Pursuit became the great repository of middlebrow boomer culture.
LOCAL
Varsity reopened.
If you missed it, here's NYT's architecture review of the new Walker from Friday. Best part of the opening party? Most people will tell you open access to Bjork (or Kim Gordon, or Yoko Ono) in the Target tent was cool. I'll tell you that the blinking red LEDs were attrocious.
thursday
If you know me, you know I love t-shirts. Compulsively and annoyingly so. Saying I'm a t-shirt collector would be stupid, but I do occasionally buy sweet tees with a "just to have it" mindset.
I dug through my closet and pulled out my favorites (an idea blatantly stolen from Preshrunk's "What's In Your Closet" feature). Click the thumbnails to see the fullsize (or view them on Flickr).
 | Atmosphere
Keepin it real. |
 | Stryper
I bought this beauty during a drunk eBay binge. Klosterman tried to buy it off my back one night. I told him I'd trade it for his Cenex tee. |
 | Rx
It's, like, personalized for me, dude. |
 | Save Mary KateYep, the one that brought on a lawsuit. |
 | Wonkette Operative
Shill. |
 | Hyperboy
Probably my fave, this is early Bjork. |
 | Talk Nerdy To Me
This tee doubles as my pajamas. |
 | Sheena, Suzi, Judy
No one gets this one. They're all Ramones girls. Bought it from a store in Portugal for vastly too much. |
 | Nordeast
Local favorite. |
 | I Read Your Email
Total ThinkGeek. |
 | I Just Love Corporations
My only remaining Onion t-shirt. The rest burned in the fire of '97. |
 | Not HelpingFrom a Creative Electric show. |
 | Rumsfeld
This guy is friggin Nietzsche. |
 | Radiohead
The last non-ironic band tee I bought. |
 | Sonic Youth
Very, very old. Long out of print. |
 | I Fuck Like A Girl
I really do. |
 | Faux News
I'm technically a journalist, but I still wore this to work one day. To hell with objectivity. |
Thanks for stopping by my closet. Here are some resources:
Preshrunk
Cool Hunting
Threadless
Nerdy Shirts
Busted Tees
Non-Zero Chance
thursday
STRANGELY FAMOUS
I would do anything to make NY Press' 50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers (which mentions the word "blog" 19 times -- hoorah!). Well, except move to New York.
Wikipedia's list of most sexually active popes. To make that list, I'd even move to New York.
FOOD
You see this new BK Enormous Omelet? 730 calories, 47 grams of fat -- more than a whopper. Delish, I'm sure.
GAMES
New Sony PSP advert featuring Franz Ferdinand's "Take Me Out."
MUSIC
As Greg said, Bjork and Matthew Barney are the last people on the planet you'd expect to live in New Jersey. And yet...
David Byrne's online radio station.
TV
No popup ads on my TiVo yet, but I'm ready to be pissed off too....
BOOKS
Cheney's daughter is writing a memoir.
BLOGGERS
This is the weirdest dot-com news we've seen in quite some time. Arianna Huffington is starting something called The Huffington Report, a culture and politics webzine that will have a group blog with a strange cast of characters: Larry David, Barry Diller, David Geffen, Vernon Jordan, Gwyneth Paltrow, Tina Brown, and more.
FILM
Thank god Courtney Love is back. She will be playing Linda Lovelace in a biopic.
SCIENCE
This New Scientist article was a fun read: 13 Things that Do Not Make Sense. Includes the placebo effect, dark matter, and cold fusion.
Slate reviews Make, which I have to confess I had a very hard time reading, and I'm probably the market demo.
LOCAL
To coincide with the smoking ban, City Pages did a printable guide to the only remaining smoker bars in the Twin Cities (all in St. Paul, of course).
Wow, that Strib story on punk rock glasses sure was fun, eh? I'm not going to say anything more than that because I see all the people in this story around Uptown, and I don't want any of them to punch me and break my non-retro glasses.
CP's music writing sure ain't slowing down with Missy Miss flying the coop. First off, Julianne Shepherd calls Beck's newest album his best ever. Whoa there, cowboy! And then there are Bridgette's and Lindsey's nice SXSW accounts, parts of which I got to see with them.
monday
ONLINE
Think of an object. 20Q.net can usually figure it out in less than 20 questions.
Remember Friendster? Apparently, the site is finally planning to offer new products, though what they are is still unclear. MySpace is already several times bigger than Friendster.
My Yahoo RSS Ticker.
McSweeney's Recommends.
eXeem -- the next generation in P2P -- is out.
BLOGGERS
Video interview with Salaam Pax.
Howard Kurtz had Ana Marie Cox and Andrew Sullivan on Reliable Sources yesterday. Here's the transcript.
MARKETING
Alright, someone's gotta start a backlash on this viral marketing stuff. For instance, this one appears to be MTV2, this one appears to be TransGlobal Vacations, and this one appears to be GM. I think all of them involve billboards too. Stop it, before you hurt someone!
TV
The Sims is being made into a TV show. They should really get Strangerhood to consult.
Lisa Rein has the Daily Show Inauguration Speech video. (This "Freedom vs. Liberty" comparison came up everywhere last week, from SNL to the New York Times to NPR.)
New on Flowtv.org: interview with Jason Reich, a Daily Show writer.
Lost Remote thread: How Would You Fix CBS News?
MUSIC
New Bjork / Spike Jonze video: "Triumph of a Heart".
Simon Reynold tries to explain why dance music is dying. Even dance music subculture fans will like to see Black Strobe, DJ/Rupture, LCD Soundsystem, Mu, Tiefschwarz, Teamshadetek, and Kiki name-checked in The Times. If you're into that kinda thing, the ILM thread.
If you haven't heard it, you probably should hear Nina Gordon's version of "Straight Outta Compton" (mp3). Refresher: Nina Gordon was in Veruca Salt.
Gawker on Spin's Killers cover: "There's surely someone in North Dakota who has yet to discover these guys."
ILM debates "Southern Man" (Neil Young) vs. "Sweet Home Alabama" (Lynard Skynard).
FILM
Low Culture on Crispin Glover's new project, What Is It? "The film features a cast consisting largely of actors with Down Syndrome, a snail with the voice of Fairuza Balk, and legendary publisher Adam Parfrey playing 'Jealous Minstrel'." Crispin has either lost it, or he's deeply inspired by Prince Harry.
On eBay: Napoleon Dynamite - Rex's Bad Boy Stars & Stripes Pants.
Robert X. Cringely: The New Mac Mini is All About Movies.
DRINKING
NYT Styles on the GOP-friendly bar that the Bush twins hang at.
T-SHIRTS
I Can't, I'm Mormon (dot-com).
I Stole Brad (dot-com).
ART
I had no idea that taxidermy was so in. First the Creative Electric brouhaha, now NYT Styles on taxidermy art.
LOCAL
89.3 The Current launched today. Audio stream, staff list, and a list of the music played in the last six hours. When I turned it on for the first time, Low's "Radio Transmission" was playing. Good sign.
Slate.com explainer: How Embarrass, Minn., Got Its Name.
Locally-shot short film, Ma Ma's Revenge. Um, weird.
I'm slightly embarrassed to just now find out that local boy Rob Davis is the person behind the NYT Firefox advert. (Discovered this via a Wired mag cover story, not online yet.) Rob was also the creator of BushBoy.com (CP story), Deanie Babies, and Butter Palm. More so than any one else in this city, Rob needs a blog.
tuesday
When people ask me what my blog is about, I always stumble around for an accurate answer. Whereas most of my favorite blogs are about a single topic, this site mixes elements of pop culture, technology, media, and internet prattle. When pressed for a defining characteristic, I usually mumble something about online culture, and hope that is somehow self-defining.
Whatever the definition of "my little experiment in ego-casting" (as I like to call it), I am honored to be nominated by Wired for a Rave Award (press release).
Newcomers might wonder how this dumb blog stands out among a kjillion others out there. The short answer: it doesn't -- blogs are best consumed as an aggregate, a sum greater than its parts. It's a tired metaphor, but it's worth restating: the blogosphere is a living breathing entity that survives because all of its various cells work individually to create an organism.
However, I do have a suspicion that those people who come here (a meager 8,000 of you per day) don't need more long-form opinion in their life. There are plenty of clever commentary blogs out there, but I personally believe the world has enough opinion -- but hey, that's just an opinion. So if this blog has a theme, it's to fulfill its namesake: consuming and redistributing the carrion of online communication.
You see, when I dubbed this site fimoculous -- which is a type of micro-organism that inhabits and consumes its own excrement for sustenance -- I took it literally. This site lives in and eats its own shit. To put it more prosaically, I think of Fimoculous.com in simple terms: a place to find what people are talking about online today. So the best part of this site is probably the left column where the links are. I am online at least 10 hours/day, and that's where I store what I encounter.
Defying that depiction, I have nonetheless gathered below a small collection my favorite posts over the years. I apologize for the hubris of this greatest hits collection, and I swear this is the last time you'll see me talking about myself.
Yearly Lists, Lists, Lists
Think about how many devices you use that serve the simple purpose of aggregating content that you already have access to. I'm thinking of your TiVo, your iPod, your RSS Reader, and many other devices in your digital life. None of these devices provide you with new content -- they just organize it in a more effective way. When making a definition of blog, this aggregating element would have to be part of it. So it makes sense that the most popular feature on this site is not even really content -- it's a list of lists.
Blogs of the Year
These are my picks for the blogs that all deserve a Wired nomination for disrupting publishing in society-shaking ways.
IM Robot Chatter
I'm strangely proud of this one. All I did is write a program that allows two AIM clients to "talk" to each other. Postmodern love ensues.
The Rise and Fall of Plain Layne
This wasn't on my blog per se, but it was chronicled here and I think of it as my manifesto on online identity.
American Taliban on Usenet
I always felt like the mainstream media should have grabbed this story. Right around the same time as Google opened up the Usenet archive, America was obsessing about John "American Taliban" Lindh. All I did was Google him on the archive, and his 46 pre-Afghanistan posts opened a complete personality profile at a time when everyone was asking "what kind of person could possibly do this?"
Game Culture
This rambling essay looks at some of the trends in gaming today.
Digital Media Predictions
Here are my digital media predictions for 2005.
Rex Rock City
Chuck Klosterman is my nemesis, and I am his. This is a footnote face-off of our friendship. (His new book has another chapter about our relationship, which will be deconstructed at a future date.)
Blogumentary
This is another article I wrote for City Pages, looking at Chuck Olsen's film Blogumentary, which is essential viewing for those interested in personal publishing.
Wonkette Shakedown
Live reporatage of Wonkette's appearance at the Online News Association keynote.
Flash Mob
It's hard to even say flash mob without giggling, but it was fun to be part of this movement for a while.
It's scary to see my name on a list next to so many of my idols, including Rem Koolhaas, Frank Gehry, James Surowiecki, Steve Jobs, Michel Gondry, Quentin Tarantino, Bjork, Prince, The Streets, Jon Stewart, Sergey Brin, and Larry Page. The other nominated bloggers are an amazing cast: Wonkette.com (Ana Marie Cox), Blogmaverick.com (Mark Cuban), Instapundit.com (Glenn Reynolds), and Kevinsites.net (Kevin Sites).
tuesday
ONLINE
I'm sure your inbox filled up yesterday too. All your nerdy friends sent the link to Bill Gates striking a pose in a 1983 issue of Teen Beat. Hot!
The New Yorker picks a strange site to profile: CollegeHumor.com.
Up next: Google is buying.... dark fiber?
The world's first blogger, Justin Hall sort of had a breakdown in January 2005.
Somebody claims to have created a program that will remove DRM from Windows Media files. If true, this could be catastrophic for Microsoft. Bah, nevermind. But it makes you wonder what happens when this actually does occur.
TV
You're not hallucinating. Networks have been tagging an extra minute to their schedules to deceive TiVos (though they deny that's why). See also in the L.A. Times: Looking for New Ways to Make Viewers Pay, which hypothesizes the future of DVRs becoming a pay-model for the networks.
The Long Tail TV Conclusion.
Time lists those in the running for Dan Rather's job: Katie Couric, Ted Koppel, John Roberts, Scott Pelley, Mika Brzezinski, and Anderson Cooper. Katie is gonna get it, but I'm cheering for Anderson.
I'm probably the only person you know who TiVos Howard Kurtz's Reliable Sources. CommonDreams.org has an editorial critiquing the CNN show.
T-SHIRTS
The Blog!
PHONES
Good close-ups of the new Treo. I still haven't decided if it's worth $500+ to upgrade. The only benefits that affect me are the increased screen quality and the better camera.
IDEAS
Random thought: do you think we'll start hearing the word blink all the time now? I imagine in the blink of an eye being resurrected just like tipping point was. Damn you, Gladwell!
MUSIC
Getting there before Pazz & Jop do, Amy's Robot applies the old algorithm methodology on the best albums of 2004.
I've never heard of this collective of video directors: Colonel Blimp. You'll find videos from The Chemical Brothers, The Streets, Bloc Party, Scissor Sisters, Spiritualized, New Order, Dizee Rascal, Bjork, and Basement Jaxx. Good stuff.
MEDIA
It's interesting that I haven't found a single reason to link to Slate.com since the buy-out by the Washington Post. Maybe it's a coincidence, but it certainly looks like dullville over there lately.
tuesday
This was supposed to be the year that our past saved us from ourselves. But at least far as popular music is concerned, that wasn't true, as new releases from the Beastie Boys, Courtney Love, REM, Prince, Bjork, and U2 all turned out as noble attempts at pretending not to be boring.
But then, just as the failure of the legacy acts opened the door for newcomers such as Nellie McKay and Arcade Fire, a couple unexpected true legacies came from out of nowhere to surprise us: Loretta Lynn and Brian Wilson. Who saw that coming?
As I saw it, here are the best albums of 2004:
1) The Streets, A Grand Don't Come For Free -- When I was upset about another relationship breakup, when I was getting ready for a party, when I was choosing an album for my alarm clock to wake me up to in the morning -- it was always The Streets on the stereo. Beyond its versatility, it was also completely indescribable. By default, it's called hip-hop, but it seems more like some kind of ancient syncopated storytelling. That's right, Mike Skinner is our Homer. And the craziest part was when people would ask for a description of the album: toward the end of explaining the Pulp Fiction-ish structuring narrative, I had to pause and say, "I can't say any more without ruining how it ends." That's the sign of a good album.
2) Franz Ferdinand, Franz Ferdinand -- Idea for us to make millions in Hollywood: let's make a movie set in the summer of '04, and play "Take Me Out" during the party scene. Millions, I tell you! The way I see it, "Take Me Out" starts like a good Strokes (or Beatles?) ditty and segues perfectly into a great White Stripes (or Stones?) romp. Before you can even realize it, you're singing "I know I won't be leaving here... with you" to every girl at the party. And you won't be leaving with her, because she's having too much fun dancing. This was the album for people who wanted to forget in three-and-a-half-minute increments that GW has already taken us through two wars.
3) TV on the Radio, Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes -- Just when you thought every possible option for fusion was gone (country electronica? check. indie hip-hop? check. a capella dance? check.), a few dudes in Brooklyn came up with what is essentially doo-wop punk. Yet it sounds nothing like that, as this fusion is probably the most unique sound of the decade so far.
4) DFA, Compilation #2 -- At first, this album -- which sounds approximately like "dancing to a plane crash" -- seemed impenetrably "too New York" for me to "get." In fact, every time I described it to someone, I threw around scare-quotes just like that last frightening sentence. And then somewhere around track five on the second disc, it hit me: this sounds like Minneapolis in 1985, when punk (Husker Du, The Replacements) and funk (Prince, Morris Day) were banging heads with each other. Suddenly, it felt like home.
5) Loretta Lynn, Van Lear Rose -- Out of the gate, this album was criticized as a forced mash-up. Which of course it is, and that's what it's so gorgeous.
6) Dizzee Rascal, Showtime -- There's something about Dizzee Rascal that reminds me of playing Tetris. Must. Fit. Blocks. In. Holes.
7) Wilco, A Ghost Is Born -- Though immensely frustrating at times, the brilliance of Jeff Tweedy shines through in spurts and whistles and grunts.
8) The Walkmen, Bows and Arrows -- The Walkmen are sort of the Built To Spill of 2004. We always need an indie rock band that turns the guitar fuzz louder than the vox.
9) PJ Harvey, Uh Huh Her -- It's probably her second-weakest album, but PJ still makes the most shamefully annihilating recordings of anyone alive.
10) "Rockism" -- Even though Michaelangelo insisted that the debate is at least three years old, 2004 was the year that rockism went, well, mainstream. Kelefa Sanneh's critique of the goofy word led me into more conversations than any album this year, and because of that, it was better than all those boring old-timer albums. I still think it's a straw man concept, but hey, it was nice arguing with all of you about it. For at least a half-second, it actually tricked me into thinking music criticism still matters.
22 runner-ups:
Arcade Fire,
Funeral;
Bloc Party,
Bloc Party;
The Hold Stready,
Almost Killed Me;
Interpol,
Antics;
Air, Talkie
Walkie;
The Fiery Furnaces,
Blueberry Boat;
Morrissey,
You Are The Quarry;
Nellie McKay,
Get Away From Me;
Modest Mouse,
Good News For People Who Love Bad News;
Bjork,
Medulla;
Sonic Youth,
Sonic Nurse;
Madvillian,
Madvillainy;
Big & Rich,
Horses of a Different Color;
Pavement,
Crooked Rain Reissue;
Tom Waits,
Real Gone;
Le Tigre,
This Island;
The Killers,
Hot Fuss;
The Thrills,
Let's Bottle Bohemia;
Bjork,
Medulla;
Har Mar Superstar,
Handler;
Clinic,
Winchester Cathedral;
Eminem,
Encore.
See previously:
23 Best Albums of 2003
16 Best Albums of 2002
20 Best Albums of 2001
See also:
Lists 2004
monday
Today, I want to touch on a few topics related to game culture -- and how it intersects with movies, music, and digital communication. I know, that intro sentence sounds about as fun as an a capella Bjork album (oh wait!). So instead of getting pedantic, let's look at the gaming landscape by pointing out new phenomena in digital entertainment, with a focus on how gaming is influencing all media. This isn't necessarily a cohesive essay with a single objective, but I hope it's more than another "Synergy of The Matrix" piece. Let's just call this a Scrappy Collection of Thoughts About Various Gaming Trends that have been of recent fascination to me:
VIDEO MODS
I won't try to convince you that the mashup of a teen-goth BloodRayne 2 video game and a teen-goth Evanescence music video belongs in the canon of required cultural material for our time. In other words, don't sigh if your TiVo missed Video Mods, a new series on MTV2 in which video game characters and landscapes are used to create music videos. I guess the worst thing that one could say about Video Mods is that Viacom is blatantly ripping off Machinima to attract video game advertising to television.
Even if that's true, it's also much more.
But first: a part of me wants to tell you that the convergence of these mediums is the perfect metaphor for the current state of the music industry. This cynical critique would go something like this: little pac men (consumers) run around a contested maze (Virgin Records) gobbling up indistinguishable dots (songs/albums) and ghosts (musicians). It's a sociological Flatland out there, in which demographics are empty ciphers with unlimited purchasing power -- the same goddamn person buys (or downloads) Outkast, Evanescence, and Creed. À la carte pop culture icons are sculpted with the same care that goes into creating Sims characters -- complete with readymade identities that become obsolete faster than you can blurt "Friendster." Identity is the currency of the music industry, and it's a free market economy of Pokemon cards: I'll trade you a "Britney Reinvented #24" for a "Cleaned Up Christina #9." Virtual video game characters taking over the role of musician is nothing more than the next step in the MilliVanilling of the music industry.
But, like I said, I don't really buy that mojo. Perhaps there is a kernel of truth in cynically looking at pop culture icons, but I think it ultimately misses a key point in understanding the attraction of Video Mods. For evidence, take a look at The Sims 2 video mod of the Fountains of Wayne song "Stacy's Mom."
The Sims is the top dog of this medium so far. Not only is it the highest-selling series of all time, but it has come to represent a watershed creative moment in the industry. So why, one might ask, would "Stacy's Mom" score the grand prize of The Sims mod?
I honestly have no idea. But I think you'll see a clue by looking at the storyline behind "Stacy's Mom." You might say the Fountains of Wayne song is just a MILF romp imagined by a horny adolescent. But in reality, it's not even that -- it's actually sung by thirty-somethings who are themselves projecting a tweener dream. Basically, it's a wish fulfillment nostalgia fantasy from guys old enough to be Stacy's Dad.
So now, what is The Sims? That's more complex, but one could say it is an interactive world where players bring to life characters outside their normal demographic makeup. In other words, it's a giant role-playing fantasy.
Starting to see a trend here? Let's move on....
PLAYBOY
In the age of Suicide Girls, it's amazing that Playboy is still around. And it's amazing that I bother to mention the publication in a video game rant. But even as I say this, I realize that for the first time in my life, I bought an issue of Playboy last month, simply because the magazine has done a remarkable job of staying relevant in a digital age. For instance, the Google guys interview and the Washingtonienne spread reminded me that the magazine could still be relevant.
Or maybe these are just the last gasps of breath of a dying Boomer ideology. I'd entertain that argument too.
Anyway, when Playboy announced they would be doing a photo spread of characters from video games, you could instantly picture a digital historian somewhere writing this event into a timeline of important virtual character events (chronologically right after reality TV and right before the holodeck). Hackers modding Lara Croft into a pinup is one thing, but the mainstream culture industry getting sly with virtual sexuality says a lot more about where we are. This single layout might actually become the best indicator of the mainstreaming of a number of (previously) fringe activities and concepts: virtual sexuality, video game culture, user-modified content, reality blurring. And a new video game, Playboy: The Mansion, a Sims-like romp through Hef's mansion, will take this even further.
WAR GAMING
Forget sex, war is where it's at.
A lot has been said recently about the relationship between the industrial war complex and video games (such as in articles in The New York Times and Wired). When the Army created the game America's Army to recruit soldiers, it seemed that Ender's Game truly was going to happen. I'm working on an article for publication about this theme, so let's breeze past this topic for the moment.
SIMS 2
Every night over the last week, I've sat in a room with a computer and TV, playing the recently-released The Sims 2 and watching late night talk shows. Something important changed last night: I turned off the TV and started watching the show that my Sim character was watching on his television.
I don't think I can even articulate how hyper-real this is.
REALITY GAMING
The spurt of ironic glee about Flash Mobs last summer was more than a hipster punchline. It illustrated how gaming was leaking from the pores of society. The products of this spillage have included Big Urban Game (Minneapolis) and PacManhattan (NYC). And the glut of competition-based reality shows (Survivor, The Apprentice, Fear Factor, etc.) are all just extreme versions of reality gaming. (One could also argue that these Reality Games are a sort of tame suburban version of more serious planned events like the Seattle WTO Protests. That's for a different essay though.)
THE VIDEOGAME REVOLUTION
Anyone who has played even five minutes of Zelda will find PBS's new two-hour special The Video Game Revolution a bit tedious. I suppose it serves a valid purpose -- to provide a historical framework of popular video games. Too bad it's as engaging as a two-hour Pong match.
But what interests me is what this documentary represents in this moment in time. It seems we have reached a period in gaming where we can reflect on the past equipped with the gear found in the toolbelt of historical analysis: summary, bricolage, and nostalgia. The Video Game Revolution implicitly declares video games as a real object of pop culture study. Of course, this should not be surprising given the rise of academic programs designed to study gaming. Something about this evolution reminds me of 1990s-era Camille Paglia promoting the notion that universities should start rock music programs. I have mixed feelings about whether turning an academic eye to rock really does anything for musicians or fans or society, but I do worry an accidental effect of academizing a discipline in the past couple decades: studying it is synonymous with taming it. (I know many people in academia who are studying game and play, and they all get sour-faced when I suggest this possibility.)
WATCHING TV AT WORK
Many companies have planned events on Fridays that provides employees a break from work. But what our workplace does is truly unique. The idea started innocently: let's use our in-house online video streaming technology to deliver a movie to employees on Friday.
Thus was born The Friday Matinee.
Here's how it works: every Wednesday, an email goes out to a dist list of programmers, designers, engineers, and editors. It contains a list of movies, and the community votes on which one it will watch. On Friday at 2:00, the intranet streaming servers are fired up and the 'play' button is pushed on the DVD player. This is where it gets interesting.
If you walk around through the darkened cubicles at this time, you will see dozens of programmers donning headphones and staring at their computer monitors. They are simultaneously performing a number of tasks: writing code, watching The Friday Matinee, and IM-ing their colleagues about both. In other words, people are working, being entertained, and communicating all at the same time. There's something about this collapse of mediums and lifestyles that suggests a complicated future of media and entertainment.
CONCLUDING
This last example has nothing explicitly to do with gaming, but it illustrates something that's happening in our times: people are hacking mediums together for their own purposes. The provocative questions are just starting to come out: what happens if you mix film with instant messenger? what would a music/game hybrid look like? how could role-playing influence traditional one-way entertainment?
In an average day, I perform numerous activities which have nothing to do with gaming explicitly, but which feel somehow game-like. These include blogging, creating a playlist for my iPod, programming my TiVo, Googling girls on my cellphone at bars, and learning the hacks behind Yahoo Internet Messenger. If there's one point from all these examples, it's that "gaming" might become so pervasive as to become invisible.
Game on.
tuesday
MUSIC
It's not even 24 hours later, and I'm already sick-to-death of talking about the VMAs. But I'll say this: "MIAMI, WE LOVE YOU!" The fuck? No we don't. Miami sucks. It sucks so bad that Matt Drudge and Anne Coulter moved there. MIAMI, WE LIKE YOU ABOUT AS MUCH AS WE LIKE HOUSTON!
Of course the new Bjork officially went on sale today. It's her most challenging album so far. Listen | Buy.
MEDIA
Friendster, the magazine (second item)? C'mon.
TV
Is it true that anything that airs on tv now will eventually show up on DVD?
ONLINE
Engadget interviews Jack Valenti.
One of my favorite sites lately has been AdTunes.com, a blog about songs used in tv commercials.
OLYMPICS
Who's on the new Wheaties box? Phelps, Patterson, Gatlin, and... not Hamm.
The Worthympic Games.
POLITICS
I've heard a lot of people asking lately why alt-weeklies haven't naturally risen to the top of the internet traffic destinations. I think there are many misguided precepts in the question itself, but I will say that The Village Voice's foray into blogging this week is pretty brilliant. "I work as a clothed cocktail waitress at a strip club on Manhattan's far West Side... It's not far from Madison Square Garden and, this week, the GOP convention."
The Bush Twins slideshow is really everything you wanna see at the RNC.
ART
A cool resource site on Warhol's Factory: Warholstars.com.
LOCAL
The Sound Unseen site launched today. One of the best events of the year.
thursday
I took the Drink-o-Meter, and it told me I've spend $59,579.52 on booze. That's it?
ONLINE
Disturbing Auction collects strange things being sold on eBay.
It's the end of an era. Plain Layne says goodbye. Like a swimming pool in a cornfield, This is how I'll remember her.
Google has a new feature whereby you enter the word "define" before the search term and it will try to provide a definition of the word. Example: define motherfucker.
TV
D.C. is not watching K Street.
FILM
Wired's okay Wachowski Brothers FAQ.
Sixteen Candles, the sequel. Ducky.
MEDIA
Story on the Media Deconstruction Kit.
I'm really not sure why this interests me, but here's Spin's Media Kit (pdf). Contains all kinds of demographic information like media age and income.
Tina Brown's new column in the Washington Post. Ho-hum.
POLITICS
Profile of Joe Trippi, Howard Dean's campaign manager who got the governor blogging.
WORDS
Seattle Weekly: Why I Heart Chick Lit.
ART
Huh, there's an Escher museum?
MUSIC
Great. Punk is in the Style section again. Slideshow.
Someone should do a study about the disproportionate number of rappers who make the New York Times business section. This week, it's Outkast for pimping pitbulls.
It's been a while since I could say this, but The Voice's music section this week is all about stuff I like. Matos does The Rapture and Basement Jaxx, and there are Decembrist and Shins reviews. Christgau gives Bjork and Rancid both an A-. Plus, there's this odd thing about MP3Pro.
Calling The Strokes neocons might be a tad much, but I enjoy the thesis of this Joe Hagan piece in Newsweek.
FOOD
Underground restaurants? Sign me up.
TECH
Steve Brill is working on a Verified Identity Card.
LOCAL
You know Famous Dave of Famous Dave's? He's, uh, famous now.
friday
I'm finally back, now with a brain chock full of simmering ideas. I met Ray Suarez, drank with Lost Remote, heard the people behind DeanForAmerica, and blabbed alot about the democracy in the age of participatory journalism. Not a bad week.
Looks like things are really heating up in the social software arena. Let's start there:
TECH
Guess who's on the cover of Spin this month. Well, sure Dave Fucking Matthews, but guess who else. Yep, everyone's favorte post-networking device, Friendster. Pst, there are rumors that Google wants to buy Friendster.
Andy has launched Upcoming.org, which I very lightly helped beta test. This wonderful little application allows you to create personal and city calendars of events (here's the Twin Cities and here's me, user #11 of what will be two million in six months). It's everything I like about social software: collaborative, bigger than the sum of it's parts, and real-world-reinforcing. Think of it as Meetup meets Friendster meets Craiglist. Plus if you ever want to know where I am at night, now you know where to go.
Macromedia has launched Central, another product I not-very-rigorously beta tested.
Red Herring mag is back, online only.
L.A. Times story on the web-savvy Howard Dean campaign. Hearing the people behind the online campaign speak was the best part of my trip to D.C.
Microsoft and Google are both playing with location-based searching. With Google's Search By Location, you enter a search term and a location, and it gives you a map with results. (Luckily I'm not found when you search my zip code for "fucker".) And with Microsoft's World Wide Media Exchange, photos are indexed by location.
Amazon has added some goofy Flash games to promote their new sporting goods store. There's also word that Amazon is working on a search engine.
Nokia just released a new line of "Imagewear" products, wearable and mini phones and camera and such. Gizmodo has the links.
ACADEMIA
Edward Said has died: Times | Guardian | BBC | Zmag.
FILM
Preview for new Gus Van Sant: Elephant.
This is a little old, but I'm still playing catch up: Lost in Translation Translated. And Greg has tracked down the original Kurosawa Suntory commericials.
MUSIC
New White Stripes video: Hardest Button To Button.
Good: Pitchfork's list of 50 Most Common Used CDs.
A drink with Bjork.
Beatbox.tv.
LOCAL
Caribou Coffee sued for same-sex sexual harrassment.
ETC
Culturata that came out this week that you need: Salam Pax's The Clandestine Diary of an Ordinary Iraqi, Outkast's Speakerboxx, and Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver (pst, Quicksilver wiki and Paul Boutin review).
monday
INTERNET
Courtney Love is on Friendster. Unlike most celeb Friendster accounts, this one is very likely real. In other news, Friendster recently received a cool million in venture capital money. Investors include heavies from Yahoo, PayPal, Amazon, and Net
Sergey of Google and Rael of Google Hacks were on NPR's Science Friday. (Happy Birthday, Google.)
WORDS
Long, decent Douglas Coupland interview over at Morning News. It's worth it.
Amy's Robot says that DeLillo's White Noise has been made into a screenplay. I'm foaming and frothing.
FILM
Elevator Moods features short movies shot from the point of view of an elevator security camera. I am oddly enthralled.
The Pentagon is screening one of my favorite movies. It seems they have a different agenda.
This Is Not a Love Song, supposedly the first feature-length film released online, debuted (or at least tried to debut) this weekend.
MEDIA
The cover of this month's Wired is "Superproducers" (not online yet), a profile of Timbaland, The Neptunes, Dan the Automator -- in other words, those I envy. Although I enjoyed the blurbs (it was hardly and "cover story"), I've gotta ask if this isn't a bit of demographic searching on the part of Wired. I guess if they're going to move further into lifestyle/culture reporting, this is an okay place to start. Maybe.
CJR.org has redesigned. Matt Welch's big-scale attack on so-called alternative press is a great transition piece. The claim: blogging replaces the city alternative paper. There's also a piece on new online magazines.
Very unsurprising in it's surprise, the guy from Vice has written an editorial in The American Conservative.
Who's a black, conservative, virgin, under five feet tall running for governor of Calfornia? Who else?
DESIGN
Redesign Jakob Nielson's site contest. I'm thinking something like this.
Barney's website launched. Everything is obscenely expensive.
MUSIC
Satancide rules.
The first linkable thing from Rolling Stone in months: Behind the Lines. Beck, Michael Stipe, Steve Malkmus, Liz Phair and others reveal the origins of famous lyrics. It's okay.
Salon gives Bjork the full-scale retrospective treatment.
Another Outkast profile. I wonder how many "we're not breaking up" stories this is.
monday
Fimoculous.com: a vast collection of unfair and imbalanced links.
MUSIC/VIDEO
A few weeks ago, I noted here that Matthew Barney was releasing the Cremaster Cycle on DVD. Greg Allen from Greg.org quickly dropped me a note to say that it was not the Cremaster Cycle -- is was excerpt oddities like Barney scaling the Guggenheim. I protested: "But the site says so!" Now, Greg has penned an article in the Sunday Times about Barney and the search for DVD-quality video art, which pretty much clears it up: I'll never own the Cremaster Cycle DVD.
Re: yesterday's Coldplay video link, Waxy pointed out that Cibo Matto's "Sugar Water" as a better example of a time-twisting video narrative.
Perhaps our three greatest music video directors -- Spike Jonze, Chris Cunningham, and Michel Gondry (who directed the Cibo Matto video above) -- are interviewed. They have DVD retrospectives coming out on Palm Pictures. (Bjork is of course the connecting factor between the three.)
The future: Interactive Porn DVDs.
INTERNET/COMMUNITY
The Onion tackles Internet Social Networks.
Times Flash Mob story surveys the current state of Flashmobs, with an unlinked mention of Flashmugging.com. (I declined an interview for this story.)
You see, blogs aren't just about cute pet stories (1,764 comments!).
The Guardian looks at smart clients such as Macromedia's Central, which I've been beta testing.
Wired has a story (not online) about MIT's OpenCourseWare completely free online classes. This Fall, there will be 500 courses available. If they're as enticing as Media, Education, and the Marketplace (with video lectures!), this could be a very good thing.
Google's new calculator really is powerful: answer to life the universe and everything = 42.
TV
Emily Nussbaum's commentary on TV shows' DVDs is completely accurate for someone like me who uses Netflix almost exclusively to watch tv.
Mary-Kate and Ashley are on the cover of Rolling Stone. Yipe. See also: The Olsen Twins' Countdown To Legality Clock. (Random thought: you think Ashley is pissed she didn't get a hyphenated name? Was she dissed?)
MEDIA
6 MB movie file of The Daily Show on the Al Franken vs. Fox scandal.
Long Times Mag article on CNN's transition from Connie Chung to Paula Zahn, which oddly ends without a conclusion (kinda like that MSNBC Jesse Ventura show that still hasn't happened).
MUSIC
I've watched all the episodes of Cooking With Rock Stars and Jack Black, was the best.
The New Yorker put their Cat Power profile online, but let's be honest, that Avednon photo was really worth a thousand two-dollar words.
NY Times: Weird adoring essay about Steve Perry of Journey.
NewWavePhotos.com
Drag City is publishing the diary of Bonnie Prince Billy (aka Will Oldham) from his tour with Bjork.
Napster 2.0 (and a decent roundup of the other online music services).
The Strokes announce track list. Millions of scenesters search for MP3s. (Ahem, if you find them, please alert me.)
STYLE
The online store for Footprints Architecture Collection appears to be working now. They were getting press in Metropolis and a couple other places a few months ago for designing shoes "inspired" by architecture. (Neat as that might sound, I get alergic reactions thinking about spending $250 on shoes.)
Outlet malls are evil.
We Americans like to read articles about how other cultures consume our pop exports. But here's an article from Japan analyzing how we consume manga.
DESIGN
BBC on the dream desk.
LOCAL
Awesome collection of Minneapolis-themed t-shirts at Papasea. The MOA SUX one is being shipped overnight delivery.
A bunch of personal friends and acquaintances are interviewed in this Strib story about the dying local film scene being supplanted by an indie scene.
Fringe Festival: big jump in attendance this year.
New looks-promising blog: Reshaping Minnesota.
saturday
A fun Friendster excercise. Pick an author/musician/filmmaker and search Friendster for it. Of the 70,000 people registered, 38 list Plato and 1789 list Bjork. I could do this for days.
A mysterious list of items purchased in the last month on Amazon.com by you, the readers of Fimoc, after clicking through from this site (giving me a 5% referral payback):
This is my audience?
wednesday
WORDS:
Joy Press connects Hillary Clinton to Courtney Love in The Voice. (Same issue: Why Hillary Enrages Feminists.)
Slate.com has a risqué slideshow documenting how the lap-dance ruined the strip-tease, based upon the book Lapdancer. (I hope Slate isn't becoming Salon.)
City Pages' Summer Reading Supplement is out.
The Guardian profiles the philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, who is new to me but sounds provocative.
TV:
Amusing: a collection of MP3s of every song ever played on The Gilmore Girls. Actually, not a bad set.
Both Terry Gross and The Onion A.V. Club have interviewed Colin Quinn this week for his new show, Tough Crowd on Comedy Central. He's good; too bad the show sucks. Get some decent guests, Colin.
FILM:
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy being made into a movie.
Trailer to yet another edgy, punky English Australian film: Garage Days.
MUSIC:
Bjork has a new haircut.
All the members of Duran Duran are reuniting for a tour.
The Rapture signed to a major label.
LOCAL:
This week, Dara approaches local cuisine from the angle of the businessman versus the chef. If I'm not mistaken, it's a small meta-critique to the Strib recently focussing on the culinary big picture (I'm thinking of that "two-star city" criticism from a few weeks ago).
LIVING:
Tokyo surpasses Hong Kong as most expensive city to live. Top 10:
- Tokyo
- Moscow
- Osaka
- Hong Kong
- Beijing
- Geneva
- London
- Seoul
- Zurich
- NYC
friday
Sorry to have been away so long (and to have turned this into a dark place that quotes Belle And Sebastian -- Jack Black would knife me if he knew). No, I wasn't at SXSW with all the other miscreants, but here are the web award winners if you somehow missed them. And, oh yeah, those Puma ads were fake. Blame bloggers!
New blogs of note: Marilyn Manson | Fast Food Fever | Kevin Sites (CNN foreign correspondent).
Cool future wearable electronics.
Times on Meetup.com as a political organization tool.
Saw a screener of Phone Booth last night. Structural movies like this can never be great, and can very easily be wretched, so it succeeds in being mediocre.
I need a new laptop, and I'll probably buy a new Sony Z1 (with Centrino, Wifi, six-hour battery, and DVD), unless you talk me out of it.
Cat Power live on KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic (audio).
Local retail hipsters rejoice: Ikea To Open Minneapolis Store.
Howard Stern is suing ABC because he thinks they stole his realty tv idea, "Are You Hot?" Uh-huh, you don't find brilliant ideas like that growing on trees. No word yet from the boys at HotOrNot.com.
If you've actually never seen a Mathew Barney movie, there's now a Cremaster website with trailers; here's one that gives a good sense of scope. If you live in NYC, you can see the entire cycle at at Film Forum next month. (It just occurred to me that he should work with Fisherspooner. But why bother collaborating when you live with Bjork?)
saturday
New Bjork video, directed by Spike Jonze, in MPEG-4 format.
Face transplants "possible within a year".
The best piece is this week's New Yorker is about the Information Awareness Office. Scary stuff.
thursday
The should-be-infamous Darin Kerr provides today's Fimoc Band Name of the Day: One Trick Vagina. That trickster.
Interesting new genre with spectacular production: Life of Pi. The Booker Prize winner this year is the first of five novels to be turned into a Flash promo. The Guardian has the full story.
I've probably linked to this before, but I always get a thrill when I go there: Bjork video gallery.
A nice collection of authors reading their own poetry, which includes pretty much everyone in the modern canon. The one that jumped out at me was Oscar Wilde -- like, we have audio of Oscar? Apparently so.
DestroyEvil.com.
It's good to see that I'm not the only one following every step of the new Solaris.
sunday
When I Grow Up (video).
Apply!
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.)
monday
A geek's heaven: The Ladies Of Star Trek. Is that Bjork?
The Times has a story about the Center for Strategic and International Studies study that invokes Buffy. In other Buffy news, did you know that Anthony Stewart Head (the guy who plays Giles) has an electronic album out? It's #12 on the Amazon.com Electonica Best-Sellers list.
More digi-art: Mark Amerika's FilmText. And since we're in the mood: Katuso and Life Is Simple.
I'm not exactly sure what Disciple Films is, but it contains some interesting projects.
Taboo Surfing: Click Here for Iran... ...And Click Here for China.
The news that MSNBC.com is discontinuing its discussion boards and replacing them with blogs is a big deal in my industry. If you care about that kind of thing, you might care about the pressure MSNBC is getting to change to be more like MSN.
The place to be seen in NYC: Michael's.
Too much linking to the Times today, but this story about the malleability of a pop star is just too good.
monday
How'd this one sneak up one me? All About Lily Chou-Chou must be the first movie to be based on an internet novel (go ahead, name another). It's also about one man's obsession with Hong Kong pop star Faye Wong, who I've been prone to describe in embarrassingly fawning terms ever since Chungking Express. The Voice has a review.
Similarly, I've been wondering what Mike Figgis has been doing since Timecode, his last experimental film that touched buttons with web geeks interested in new narrative techniques. Apparently his new film, Hotel, uses a similar four-screen mechanism. Shift has the scoop.
I have something to confess: my adoration of Ellen Feiss. That's all.
In other Apple advert news, parodies are showing up of the Switch campaign, such as here and here and here and here and here.
Gimme. Or even better, gimme.
A funny and fascinating collection of True Porn Clerk Stories.
A 1951 newspaper clipping of William Burroughs' William Tell act.
Bjork has a new site. It looks bloggy.
Just when you thought Camille Paglia had become inconsequential and unimportant... she becomes inconsequential and unimportant.
monday
This might be cooler than the day that I learned Mathew Barney and Bjork were having a kid: Wong Kar-Wai directs DJ Shadow video.
While we're at it, here's an interview with Traktor, the people behind those ESPN ads, Fatboy Slim's "Ya Mama" video, and Basement Jaxx's "Where's Your Head At?" video.
Hmmm, curious: blogs.salon.com.
Wired News profiles Karin Spitzer of No-Time.
Scoobie Davis media pranks Ann Coulter.
Coming soon: SMS TV.
Blasphemy! The Voice slags Sonic Youth.
Forbes maps the billionaires.
NoMoreEnrons.com has a movie that explains it all.
The hardest game ever. (But, yes, there is a way to win.)
The Times looks at the new Metroplis.
thursday
What the hell? My favorite musician is having a baby with my favorite filmmaker? When did this happen? The New Yorker slips in the Bjork / Matthew Barney tryst in this piece about Cremaster 3.
There's a lot of buzz about the Apathy MP3s on the web (Apathy is the band of the kid accused of those pipe bomb attacks). When I downloaded them yesterday, I had the whole office rocking out like it was 1995. Parts of "Conformity" were on MSNBC today. You think a radio hit is in the future?
My adorable little niece loves Blue's Clues. Now Mr. Blue is making an album with The Flaming Lips. I knew me and that kid would find something in common to talk about soon.
Vanity Fair names Chelsea Clinton a sex symbol.
Still dwelling on architecture stuff: How to Build Skyscrapers, from City Journal.
If you haven't seen it yet, the Guerilla News Network is worth a peak. Radical politics served up as white Verdana on a black background. Hmmm....
If anyone knows anything about Vixen Highway, a Russ Meyers-ish flick filmed here in Minneapolis, please let me know. I'm so curious...
Stephen Ambrose finally responds to the plagiarism charges (after telling you he has cancer).
MediaBistro.com interviews Jeannette Walls.
There's a Britney Spears video game coming out for PlayStation. A photo of Britney's Dance Beat. Players audition to be backup singers in Britney's virtual concert tour by maneuvering one of six characters through a series of practices and auditions to perfect their dance moves.
Psst, psst. I think Tina Fey reads this blog. No, no, I'm so serious. I have evidence. Hi, Tina! Write some time, okay?
thursday
Every time I think I might get meta about this medium (i.e., write about the structural language of blogs themselves), the episteme fails me. So I'll try to illustrate by example. Peter Maass is a writer at the New York Times Magazine who I enjoy reading. He has a blog. It's never great, and never bad, but it ususally gives me a clue into what the New York Times Magazine might be doing next. To people like me, that's interesting. Anyway. He's in Pakistan this week. He writes that he just had his first encounter with Brain Masala. He writes: "Quite popular in Karachi, and not at all bad; soft in texture and gentle in taste, much like tofu, though high in cholesterol, I'm told." That's it. That's why I like blogs. When whatever he's writing for the New York Times Magazine comes out, I will be thinking of Brain Masala.
The Replacements were going to reunite, but someone ruined it. Who? Axl-Fucking-Rose, that's who.
According to NME, The Smiths are the most influential band of that last 50 years, and the top eight are all from England. My personal poll: the best unregarded Smiths song: "Sweet and Tender Hooligan."
I spent last night stuffing my roommate's band's new CD in envelopes to be sent to radio stations. That's a plug.
Where's Osama? Your government thinks he escaped.
Forget the Mini, I'll wait for the new VW which gets 235 miles per gallon.
Woo-hoo! McDonald's is losing money!
Another good biomorphic Bjork video: "Pagan Poetry" (large load-time).
The "woodchipper house" from the movie Fargo is on sale at eBay.
Salon has a dumb column about women who wear glasses (which doesn't once make reference to Tina Fey or Ashleigh Banfield).
Movie rumor: David Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club, Panic Room) to direct Mission Impossible 3. Poor guy is really slipping.
tuesday
Today, a special feature: Fimoculous Radio. Well, it's both better and worse than radio: it's MP3s, which you have to download to hear, but which you can keep once downloaded. Today's theme: Women Doing Cover Versions Of Songs Originally Written And Performed By Men. This list obviously isn't comprehensive, but there are a few good finds on it. Let me know if you see egregious oversights. Right click and save:
Sleater-Kinney, "Fortunate Son" (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
Tori Amos, "Real Men" (Joe Jackson)
Britney Spears, "Satisfaction" (Rolling Stones)
PJ Harvey and Bjork, "Satisfaction" (Rolling Stones)
Cat Power, "Satisfaction" (Rolling Stones)
Sheryl Crow, "Sweet Child O' Mine" (Guns 'n Roses)
Sheryl Crow, "Dyer Maker" (Led Zeppelin)
The Donnas, "Strutter" (KISS)
Liz Phair, "Beginning To See The Light" (The Velvet Underground)
Cowboy Junkies, "Sweet Jane" (The Velvet Underground)
Tori Amos, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (Nirvana)
Sinead O' Connor, "All Apologies" (Nirvana)
Hole, "You've Got No Right" (Kurt Cobain)
Hole, "Hungry Like The Wolf" (Duran Duran)
Emmylou Harris, "Wrecking Ball" (Neil Young)
Aimee Mann, "One" (Three Dog Night)
Kate Bush, "Rocket Man" (Elton John)
Rickie Lee Jones, "Rebel, Rebel" (David Bowie)
Dolly Parton, "Help" (The Beatles)
Kittie, "Run Like Hell" (Pink Floyd)
Diamanda Galas, "I Put A Spell On You" (Screamin' Jay Hawkins)
X, "Soul Kitchen" (The Doors)
Pretenders and Emmylou Harris, "She" (Gram Parsons)
Cyndi Lauper, "What's Going On" (Marvin Gaye)
Alanis Morissette, "King of Pain" (The Police)
The Bangles, "Hazy Shade of Winter" (Paul Simon)
Pointer Sisters, "Slow Hand" (Conway Twitty)
Don't know where to start? For quality, I'd recommend the PJ/Bjork "Satifaction" cover; for weird, Kittie doing Pink Floyd; for classic, Cowboy Junkies on the VU; for maudlin, Tori remaking Nirvana; and for rockin, Sleater-Kinney killin CCR. In most cases, I would say the cover is better than the original, with the complete understanding that "better" isn't really a word to use in the cover-song lexicon.
wednesday
I'm bummed because there's an XSLT training course going on at work this week and I don't have any time to attend.
I'm working on a journal website for my college mentor. A first draft of Edebiyât. Here's an interesting Muslim weblog that's making me reconsider everything: Zhikr.org.
Super, super awesome Bjork video that you simply must watch (and I guarantee you won't see it on MTV).
The annual Village Voice Pazz & Jop Poll is out. Everyone's favorite Chuck was asked to vote this year. Shockingly, he was the only person to pick "The Blues" by Guns N' Roses. Yes, yes, Chuck, I'm sure it was great.
Page of William Gibson stuff, including audio of him reading.
British Telecom claims to invent the link. Here's the supposed patent and some video.
C'mon, I'd love to have sex with a diesel robot. No, no, not that diesel robot.
Interesting profile of Okwui Enwezor who will curate Documenta 11.
Futurama, cancelled.
Interview with Carl Hiassen.
How to drink sake, I think.
monday
I got a lotta linking to do today, so let's kick it up.
Chatting with Noam Chomsky on MSNBC.com. Good stuff. (What? You missed the Hitchens-Chomsky debate? Catch up!)
Score one for the Bush multi-culti staff. Zalmay Khalilzad is the resident Afghan on the Bush staff. (His wife, Cheryl Benard, wrote Moghul Buffet.)
Oh, you were looking for a definition of postmodernism? Yes, well, Hollywood is helping the Pentagon figure out terrorist strike scenarios.
Um, er, you want another? The official Department of Defense Anthrax site. In Flash.
How about some more dull lit-crit parodies? Postmodern Pooh.
Wheh, back to Modernism: Understanding Turbans.
Ten bucks to the person who writes the best Rush Can't Hear joke.
Whattevva. Knight-Ridder says they had the story long before USA Today did. Can't someone please tell them that the Guardian was writing about this for weeks before anyone in America was? (I touched on this a few days ago.)
Speaking of the Guardian, I'm enjoying their "Difficult Art Forms" series. Today: Stockhausen (and another).
Everyone's talking about "the CNN of the Middle East," Al-Jazeera. I don't know much about this network, but I'm starting my research now.
Pre-Stern City Pages editor Steve Perry has been writing about Afghanistan/Terrorism/Bush on Cursor.org. Check out today's post.
War or football? No choice.
Long piece about what Google did Sept. 11.
The video "Vidrar vel til Loftarasa" by Sigor Ros has been nominated for the Virgin Megastore Shortlist Prize for Artistic Achievement. I saw Sigor Ros perform a week ago, and I've been trying to find time to tell you about it (and about my trip to Hong Kong, and about my trip to Seattle, and about my feelings about Barb moving to Florida...). Not to resort to hyperbole, but it might've been the best concert I've ever seen.
Vincent Gallo has a new album out on Warp records.
Grand Royal is throwing a going out of business sale.
I guess this would qualify as my first link to porn: Bjork naked.
Blogdex redesigned.
A survey that I put on our websites is getting scary results.
Techies.com (a Twin Cities darling dot-com company) laid of 40 percent of its work force again. How many more 40 percents can you cut? You start to lose appendages after a while. Here's one account.
The Online Journalism Awards finalists were announced. Nope, not nominated.
Huh, Suckster Tim Cavanaugh is writing for the Online Journalism Review.
saturday
Groovy. I'm the Blog of the Day.
There's a good Bjork video interview over at Insound. She describes how the original title of her new album, which she calls a "love affair of the home," was Domestica. Insound, which is an essential bookmark for music fans, also has videos from Tortoise, Danielson Famile, and a whole lot more stuff you didn't see on the MTV Music Video Awards.
I wish someone would write an alternative history to the internet, one in which the propelling force of the dialectic had more to do with gimmicks than communication. With that in mind, the Turret-a-Phone turns swearing into an interactive art form.
The Onion A.V. Club has a long interview with Josh Whedon. (Buffy and Lost and the new Iron Chef will be the only tv I watch this fall.) In addition, The Onion proper continues with more impeccable headlines: God Finally Gives Shout-Out Back To All His Niggaz.
The website for the University of Minnesota Institute of New Media Studies recently launched.
Good article about whether image search engines are a form of digital copyright infringement. Ditto.com is being sued for theirs, and one must wonder if the same will happen to the venerated Google.
This is purely geek-talk, but the new WC3 standards for SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) were quietly released a couple days ago. Some predict that this could eventually overthrow Flash -- SVG is non-proprietary, SVG is cross-platform, SVG is a language. Personally, I think Flash has way too much history for this to ever happen, but this is something to watch.
I leave for Hong Kong in 48 hours, so now's your last chance to tell me what I need to know about HK.
