Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
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:]
[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!
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.”
Thursday, June 25, 2009
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
You will live on in the best parts of our <3s
Peace.
Love Mr. Jackson
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
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
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+.
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+.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
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.
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.
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.
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:
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Crash is a piece of junk
Nobody watch this movie. What a misguided, frustrating, misanthropic junk factory. Here are some of the questions it left me with, which may contain spoilers but you don’t care because you’re never going to watch it:
Are we really supposed to think, “Even though Matt Dillon is a racist sexual assaulter, he has been redeemed because he is nice to his sick dad and good at rescuing people from cars”? Because that’s what it seems like you’re asking us to think. Why does the Persian guy get so angry at the Hispanic guy? Calm down. How do people in this movie even know so many different racial stereotypes? It’s like they all Wikipedia’d “racial stereotypes” and made flashcards to prepare for the car accident they will inevitably be getting in tomorrow with someone of a different race. Why is Sandra Bullock such a crazy b? Why are we supposed to care about her?
WHY?
In the world in which the person who made Crash lives, everyone is:
1. Awful
2. Offended by ridiculous things, and jumping to the conclusion that people are being racist all the time.
3. Being racist all the time
4. Acting free from the dictates of reason, temperament, or any of the things we usually think of as “causes”
5. Shooting people all the time (“I just encountered a hardship. Time to shoot someone.”)
6. A terrible driver. The 9 or 10 characters get in like 6 car accidents in the course of one day. Seriously, guys, eyes on the road.
Also, in this world, there is no such thing as humor or the ordinary, just extremes of violence and sentimentalism. (Screenwriter 1: “We should do a close-up on the daughter yelling ‘Daddy’s home!’ right as the dad is about to get shot.” Sreenwriter 2: “That gives it more pathos.” The script doctor for this movie was actually Christopher Walken going “More pathos!” after every scene.)
Some of you may be objecting, “But Liz, it’s not supposed to be realistic. There are all those nods to magical realism, like when the little girl survives the gunshot (before we find out, seamless reveal!, they were blanks) or when the cops implausibly let Terrence Howard go or when the woman escapes the exploding car, which are meant to signal the film's true genre.” Maybe. Maybe. But first of all, you can’t be like “it’s magical realism, so it doesn’t matter that none of the characters have coherent motivations.” Second of all, magical realism is gay. Third of all, if you’re not working in the realist mode, don’t present yourself as a social problem film. It’s disingenuous. Red pill or blue, Crash: do you want to be The Wire, and systemically trace problems through chains of cause and effect, or do you want to get high and cry about the evil inherent to the human condition and the whims of Lady Chance? You can't have it both ways. You can't expose something as "gritty" and "real," while at the same time allegorizing that thing in grotesque exaggerations.
Or at least you can't, Crash, because you suck. Some people can. To illuminate, and in the spirit of A Unicorn's Unicorn's "gayness scatter plot", I have constructed this Realness Scatter Plot (click for large view):
Additions and amendments welcome.
Finally, I leave you with a Would You Rather: Would you rather watch Crash every week for the rest of your life, or listen to "Crash" by Dave Matthews every time you have sex for the rest of your life?
WHY?
In the world in which the person who made Crash lives, everyone is:
1. Awful
2. Offended by ridiculous things, and jumping to the conclusion that people are being racist all the time.
3. Being racist all the time
4. Acting free from the dictates of reason, temperament, or any of the things we usually think of as “causes”
5. Shooting people all the time (“I just encountered a hardship. Time to shoot someone.”)
6. A terrible driver. The 9 or 10 characters get in like 6 car accidents in the course of one day. Seriously, guys, eyes on the road.
Also, in this world, there is no such thing as humor or the ordinary, just extremes of violence and sentimentalism. (Screenwriter 1: “We should do a close-up on the daughter yelling ‘Daddy’s home!’ right as the dad is about to get shot.” Sreenwriter 2: “That gives it more pathos.” The script doctor for this movie was actually Christopher Walken going “More pathos!” after every scene.)
"Not quite enough pathos."
Some of you may be objecting, “But Liz, it’s not supposed to be realistic. There are all those nods to magical realism, like when the little girl survives the gunshot (before we find out, seamless reveal!, they were blanks) or when the cops implausibly let Terrence Howard go or when the woman escapes the exploding car, which are meant to signal the film's true genre.” Maybe. Maybe. But first of all, you can’t be like “it’s magical realism, so it doesn’t matter that none of the characters have coherent motivations.” Second of all, magical realism is gay. Third of all, if you’re not working in the realist mode, don’t present yourself as a social problem film. It’s disingenuous. Red pill or blue, Crash: do you want to be The Wire, and systemically trace problems through chains of cause and effect, or do you want to get high and cry about the evil inherent to the human condition and the whims of Lady Chance? You can't have it both ways. You can't expose something as "gritty" and "real," while at the same time allegorizing that thing in grotesque exaggerations.
Or at least you can't, Crash, because you suck. Some people can. To illuminate, and in the spirit of A Unicorn's Unicorn's "gayness scatter plot", I have constructed this Realness Scatter Plot (click for large view):
Additions and amendments welcome.
Finally, I leave you with a Would You Rather: Would you rather watch Crash every week for the rest of your life, or listen to "Crash" by Dave Matthews every time you have sex for the rest of your life?
Monday, May 4, 2009
report abuse
"I'm Done!"--> "Publish"
A hand well played.
I used to be worried that moms would never understand how to use facebook or be comfortable there, and that the understanding and comfort wouldn't show all over their face.
Diane's pretty proud of her job as a journalist at a totally regular kind of journalism job that merits pride.
I think we all know what kind of life situation resulted in the above here.
"I'm having so much fun picking my 5!" — Travis
Deirdre's life is right out of a book. (I was gonna do a link to the book, but I forgot which book was totally weird and gay).
yikes.
Nailed it, Jackson.
not at my wax museum!
His Didi Conn was weak.
to me this seems more violently anti-Eugene Mirman than anti-semetic.
A *very* u-good uuhhh-daaay. hey waiter...I'll have what he's having!
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