Sumer Mix 2009

1.“I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked,” Ida Maria:

I'd like them better if they didn't almost look like a ska band, but other than that these guys are the real deal. Also, they share my Facebook quiz nationality (Swedish).

2. “Rhythm of the Night,” Corona:

Dance music of the era when dance music was for people with tops instead of plaid shirts. Now it's for people with tops AND people with plaid shirts. Democracy!

[Spoiler alert if you haven't seen Beau Travail. What happens right before this scene is that the male gaze gets reversed, and then some laboring bodies get eroticized. Oh and meanwhile the postcolonial psyche is really fragmented:]

3. “Get Ready for This," 2 Unlimited:

See above.

4. “Lisztomania," Phoenix:

You had me at Liszt. And at not being the Decemberists.

5. “Thug Passion,” 2Pac:

Last summer I bought a bottle of Alize because of this song. It’s gross FYI.

6. “You Get What You Give,” The New Radicals:

Did you know I love uplifting music? Almost exclusively. I don’t tell people that because it makes me seem like a sociopath. The kind of person who would order mint chocolate chips online. The only people who have listened to the New Radicals in the past nine years are ant torturers, YouTube commenters, and me. And probably Europeans.

7. “Little Secrets,” Passion Pit:

Sorry I’m a blogger :( It gets the party started, tho.

8. “Bizarre Love Triangle,” New Order:

I advanced the thesis that New Order was to 2009 what Led Zeppelin was to 2004, and my friend was like, “New Order is to 2004 what Led Zeppelin was to 2004.” Touché.

9. “American Girl,” Tom Petty:

The breakdown of the song always reminds me of a dad band. Just bein' moms and dads. But the outro really brings it in terms of shredding. And what other terms are there?
Play back to back with “American Boy” for an intergenerational battle of the sexes!

10. “Wannabe in L.A.,” Eagles of Death Metal:

Why yes I do.

11. Thermals, “Now We Can See”:

This song reminds me of my pure love for music when I was a kid first learning about music. One of The Thermals was like, “let’s just write a modest, breezy jam that we can play in basement house parties for eternity” and the other Thermals were like “why not?" Plus it's about what life would be like outside the Cave and shattering the progress myth, whut.

In short, if you need me this summer, I'll be sitting in my office quietly listening to “Jock Jams.”

Case Closed

I'm glad we, as a people, got to the bottom of this one in time.












You will live on in the best parts of our <3s





Peace.







Love Mr. Jackson

Short Story Review

Since this blog is now exclusively devoted to short stories and reviews, here's some exciting news: the latest Jonathan Franzen short story is about me! It’s set in Saint Paul in the 1980s and 90s (actually in Nick’s immediate neighborhood), and the main character’s son goes to our high school, class of 2001. So I guess it’s really about Nick. Anyway, it’s worth reading if you want a window into our lives. And isn’t that why we all read? For a window into my and Nick’s lives?

Even though the story is basically Stuff White People Like in short story form, I do think that it captures the local color in an authentic* way. And maybe that is actually why we all read. Maybe. Short stories, at least.

*I’m trying to bring back using “authenticity” without scare quotes. Join me! Unless you’re my student, in which case you probably need to think harder about how experience is always mediated, B+.

BWSS: Teacup Puppies

Have you guys ever seen or heard of these? They are puppies that have been bred inside teacups. You know, to meet mankind's unceasing demand for tiny things.

Aww.

(That's Nick in the background if you were wondering. This was actually his senior yearbook photo.)

But guess what. It turns out that "cuteness" as an aesthetic value can lead to practices that are morally -- wait for it -- questionable.

The Family of Man: Our love of the tiny unites us all.

Anyway, Teacup Puppies equal total genetic messes. Apprarently their bones are so brittle that sometimes they will just fall apart. They were not meant for this earth. It's sad and awful. It's a lot like Benjamin Button.

“Fuck you, Darwin.”

So, in short: we are tampering with nature in order to make it harmonize with our aesthetic values. But in so doing -- in our unceasing quest to produce a better, more beautiful product -- we are left with something frail and maladptive, something fundamentally broken, something whose very existence is an act violence.

In other words:

B.

W.

S.

S.

Or, I guess, BWSM (Busy Writing Scholarly Monograph)