January 2010
55 posts
1 tag
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Watch From the 2001 film Chasing Holden. It’s not very good, obviously, but a funny run-around for the fact that you can’t make a film out of The Catcher in the Rye. Igby Goes Down is my Catcher-riff of choice, if only for the sparky dialogue: Igby: Oliver is majoring in neo-fascism at Colombia. Oliver: Economics. Igby: Semantics.
Howard Zinn is dead. →
molls:
Sad, man.
Thanks for sticking it to John Silber all those years, Zinn. Good Will Hunting link below. (And yeah, I can thank Matty Damon for A) having me read A People’s History and B) mentioning it when I’m interviewing for a scholarship at BU, which…maybe made it harder to get. But it was gotten!)
britticisms:
“Thunderbird” by White Hinterland
...
6 tags
FACT:
sadydoyle:
For some reason, I don’t want Neil Gaiman to be the dude who, post-apparently-reasonable-and-well-handled divorce from his (age-appropriate, I am thinking?) wife, got engaged to a much younger pop singer who makes my skin fucking crawl for any number of reasons, up to and including the fact that her albums are like the apotheosis of that attention-craving...
Some common sense, from Bill Moyers →
sometimesagreatnotion:
“Only about 100,000 votes separated the winner from the loser, and the outcome was to increase the minority party in the senate by just one vote — from 40 to 41. Nonetheless, this week’s election in Massachusetts has been declared a repudiation of Barack Obama and a resurrection for Republicans. But I checked just before this broadcast, and Democrats still controlled the...
Cowden Syndrome, you scare me.
When it comes to disease, there’s something to be said for dealing with something when you were a baby, thinking it’s gone for twenty years, and then learning that it’s a thing twenty years later. It’s very, very traumatic and I can’t wait until I have health care and can have a therapist. It’s made to mess with you in a way...
“Every hour, I’m inundated with articles, videos, and middling indie-rock albums,...”
– - My old pal Brian Raftery on why he’s going offline for 90 days.
I sort of understand the motivation behind this, but only moderately more than I understand people who give up coffee — which is to say, not very much at all.
(via reimer)
Ha! This is a great idea, but I think that “with practice,”...
Compare and Contrast
One of my favorite album covers:
And then this one just kind of says “our music is for people who really, really like Lord of the Rings,” right? The music’s already fey enough…
You broke my heart
Thanks a lot, state where I’m from! (tl; dr regarding politics in Massachusetts. FEEL FREE TO SKIP + NO MORE POLITICKIN’ EVER.) As far as I can see it, there are PLENTY of things to learn from Martha Coakley’s defeat. Most obviously: don’t run a shitty campaign, Democratic candidate. Do the work, kiss the babies, don’t diss the Red Sox and that INSUFFERABLE Curt...
Invisible Audiences
After “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison, the Prologue 1999–2000 Jeff Wall I really, really feel like everyone everywhere should read Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. It is my favorite book, likely, and the best written - strange and mysterious and horrifying and brilliant and prophetic. This Britticisms post on the “Whitewashing of Young Adult Fiction Continues” is also a...
3 tags
Silver Foxy
Manifesting my destiny: dear world, I would like to interview Martin McDonagh. (But for what publication?) I bought In Bruges on DVD, I loved it so. Such a great movie. And, and, if I ever got to talk to Mr. McDonagh, I’m sure he would like me because his short that won an Academy Award, Six Shooter, features Brendan Gleeson as a character named “Donnelly.” I’m a character...
Requiem for a Party Girl: Rambly thoughts on The...
For me, The Long Blondes are one of the more fascinating could-have-beens of the 2000s. Two full length albums, one selection of B-sides, countless NME covers and new cool thing British buzz. It translated to an album that sold something like 600 its first week in the states. Despite the endless amounts of style, the band just wasn’t able to break, and when guitarist and main songwriter...
Andreas Gursky's 99 Cent
Two films from 2009 make good use of Andreas Gursky’s 1999 piece 99 Cent as inspiration: The Hurt Locker and documentary Food, Inc. I had seen both films in a relatively recent amount of time, so it was really interesting how the Gursky images translated to these stories. In The Hurt Locker (and Kathryn Bigelow was a painter who was a Whitney Museum fellow, so you know she’s...
