How to Look Good #12

"Obviously."

How to Look Good #11

"Miss Moss has requested that these three rows be -- wait, did you hear that? Missmoss! [Indistinguishable]"

You Should Live Here #6

Well, you probably could.

Adventures in juxtaposition

À la bibliothèque.

For what it's worth, Snakes and the Fury would almost certainly be an epic story. The Sound on a Plane would be a six-hour experimental piece by Warhol. It would be silent.

KWRS #5

You know how at the end of Baileys commercials they pour the drink over ice and it looks so incredibly smooth? This is the audio equivalent of that creamy booze marketing.

1. "The Breaks" - Kurtis Blow
2. "Oh, How to Do Now" - The Monks
3. "A House Is Not a Model" - Love
4. "Prototype" - Outkast
5. "We Didn't Start the Fire" - Billy Joel
6. "National Anthem of Nowhere" - Apostle of Hustle
7. "Paradise By the Dashboard Light" - Meat Loaf
8. "Don't You Evah" - Spoon
9. "Plain Jane" - Bobby Darin
10. "Dream Lover" - Bobby Darin
11. "Happiness" - Goldfrapp
12. "Shattered" - The Rolling Stones
13. "Optimistic" - Radiohead

Oooh Winter '98

I love this t-shirt because -- wait, what? WHAT KIND OF BLACK MAGIC IS THIS.

(Threadless)

The Brain Freeze Collection, Spring 1988

"But what of the universe inside the image within the image? How does one contextualize reality under a recursive mandate whilst capitulating oneself to the iridescent majesty, the sheer joie de la confection of the sugar cone?"

How to Look Good #10

"What did they look like? Well, I didn't get a good look at them but they were all wearing sharp and suave Filson coats."

You Should Live Here #5

Filip Dujardin.

Triptych Olympics #3

Johanna Brinckman took the middle photo.

You Should Live Here #4

Or not.

KWRS #4

The theme for this episode is "I dare you to listen to this."

1. "Gulag Orkestar" - Beirut
2. "Israelites" - Desmond Dekker and the Aces
3. "That's Entertainment" - The Jam
4. "Electric Feel (Justice Remix)" - MGMT
5. "You Can't Catch Me" - Chuck Berry
6. "Contempt" - The Books
7. "Pledge of Allegiance" - Louis XIV
8. "Ticket to Ride" - Vanilla Fudge
9. "I Don't Want to Live On the Moon" - Joseph Gordon-Levitt
10. "For Once In My Life" - Stevie Wonder
11. "Priority" / "Quiet Dog Bite Hard" - Mos Def
12. "Evil" - Interpol
13. "My Sharona" - The Knack
14. "Smile (Mark Ronson Version Revisited)" - Lily Allen
15. "Christian Dior Denim Flow" - Kanye West et al.



VIDEO BONUS (alternate take):

New York Times crossword

Seriously, WTF?

How to Look Good #9

"What do you mean, have I read Milton? Do you know who I am?"

Triptych Olympics #2

"???"

Go figure

Learn something every day.

How to Look Good #8

"Serge! Serge, avez-vous a moment for the future of our planet? For just pennies a...Serge?"

I will jump on this train

Triptych Olympics #1

The Internet, c. 1570. Oil on canvas, 24 x 24 inches.

Albumologist #1

Wherein I save the album from certain death.

A little context may help: this summer I fell into a love affair with the album as an idea, a form. Pretentious, I know. But. Some of the best songs are improved in tandem, in sequence – and certainly some artists set out to create albums. So let's give it some thought, shall we?

The Rocking Chair Album comes from far enough away to be less a capital-A "Album" than many, but it's so consistently good you will forgive a lack of clear architecture. The greatest virtue of this, I've found, is that you can rearrange the songs and the thing twists itself into a new shape. "Play it on shuffle. It's never the same twice!"™

LCD Soundsystem's This Is Happening is one of that special breed of beast: an album of long tracks. More impressive, long tracks that change little. And then the vocals sneak up and blindfold you, and you wake up an hour later, and you're basically standing on the walls. Well, it's something like that.

The story behind the hood on the cover of Paul Simon is probably one of the great rock stories ever told, but I have never heard it. So don't ask me. Point is that is what the cover is. In exactly the same way (I promise) the songs are precise and personal, and yet don't feel indulgent. Woah, that sentence went purple. Sorry.

I feel compelled to mention Band on the Run, the strongest of the Paul McCartney & Wings sets, although I haven't spent too long with it. The thing is, now that I've heard it through once, I can't stop. Ok, you can skip "Bluebird" and "Mamunia" every second play, but still. I'd venture a guess: these songs have been a good 40% of my listening this week.

Finally, a collection that deserves treatment as a whole, though it is not (yet) a proper album release, Kanye West's G.O.O.D. Friday (and other) tracks. Will consider final product when it arrives, but for now -- has there been a stronger output in pop of late? Well, The ArchAndroid, maybe, but. These are six- and seven-minute frenzies. Manic episodes.

The Misconstrual Collection, Fall 2010

I like different music than you, except for stuff I used to like but still like, which we both like. The music I like now but have never liked before is music you will not like. Likewise, the music you like, if I did not like it before, I will not like.

Support this designer's education.

Speaking of conspiracies...

...here's an obvious one: "Congratulations, you may now kiss yourself."

TAIPEI (Reuters) – Chen Wei-yih has posed for a set of photos in a flowing white dress, enlisted a wedding planner and rented a banquet hall for a marriage celebration with 30 friends.

But there is no groom. Chen will marry herself.

Uninspired by the men she's met but facing social pressure to get married, the 30-year-old Taipei office worker will hold the reception next month in honor of just one person.

"Age thirty is a prime period for me. My work and experience are in good shape, but I haven't found a partner, so what can I do?" Chen said.

Clearly the manufacturers of census forms and drop-down menus are concerned about rising costs per unit, and have begun campaigning to remove "single" as a marital status option. The best business ideas are often the simplest: make everyone married, thereby removing "single" as a selectable option. Leaving only

"married"
"divorced"
"separated"
"widowed"
"missing"
"it's complicated"
"prefer not to disclose"
"other"

as options. It's basic math.

Of course, their astroturf tactics are to be commended -- so many great things begin in Taiwan! But now they've been exposed. If you never hear from me again, expect the worst. Trust no one. Sign up for as many things as you can as an unmarried person. Or else the terrorists win.

Top four sentences from this Yahoo News (Reuters) item:

1. "I think there will be more and more girls like this," said "divagirl," who did not elaborate.
2. "If I had a steady boyfriend, I wouldn't do this," Chen said. "it would be offensive to him, anyway."
3. "I was just hoping that more people would love themselves," said Chen, who will go on a solo honeymoon to Australia.
4. Chen said her mother had insisted on a groom at first but later jumped aboard the solo marriage plan.

No picture is available, so how about this?

The walrus was Hall (Conspiracy Blues)

Go-go-gadget context: Paul and Stella at his Hall of Fame induction in 1999. John's was 1994.

Filed under "Unnecessary Advertising Expenditures"

</politics>

How to Look Good #7

"You know, Mitchell, we don't have to get this shot. We can do it in post. There's no need to keep wearing those boots...I know. I know you like them. I know."

But what if I make green jello? (Futuristic Fridge Blues)

"But Mom, I already washed the apples before I put them in there."
"I don't care, you don't know where that gel has been!"

From dornob.

Quoting Mr. West

“I won't go into a big spiel about reincarnation, but the first time I was in the Gucci store in Chicago was the closest I've ever felt to home.”

More here.

Dinosaur Math

ffffound.

You Should Live Here #3

Actually, you can't live here, because Mr. Woodchuck from Full House just bought it for the staggering price of $40,400,000 (US figures).

A discerning viewer points out...

...it is difficult to be cultured all the time. Which is why this (Racing Like a Pro) helps with this (Christian Dior Denim Flow).

Pro, flow. Jeez, rappin' ain't so 'ard.



(Incidentally, whatever you call the collection of tracks Mr. West has been putting out this year -- it's good, but it's not an album -- it is more consistently excellent than just about every other 2010 release. And that's not a knock against the year in music. More later.)

How to Look Good #6

"The problem was, we all wanted to be Ringo."

KWRS #3

Another hour of your ears is taken care of. Delicious.

1. "Pursuit of Happiness (Nightmare)" ft. MGMT & Ratatat - Kid Cudi
2. "Kings of the Wild Frontier" - Adam and the Ants
3. "Hoist That Rag" - Tom Waits
4. "I Got You Babe" ft. Chrissie Hynde - UB40
5. "Acapella" - Kelis
6. "Nowhere to Run" - Martha Reeves & the Vandellas
7. "Oh, Me" - Nirvana
8. "The Passenger" - Iggy Pop
9. "Bésame Mucho" - The Beatles
10. "Black Satin" - Miles Davis
11. "Jesus Christ Was An Only Child" - Modest Mouse
12. "Long Distance Call" - Phoenix
13. "On the Radio" - Regina Spektor
14. "Lola" - The Kinks
15. "Come Together" - Michael Jackson
16. "Sail Away" - Randy Newman

If this show were a food, it would be a cucumber. Cool, nourishing, with just enough crunch to remind you that yes, you remembered to put some cucumber slices in your sandwich. Great work, man!

You Should Live Here #2

(No one else does.)

Looks like Michigan, smells like Michigan, tastes like Michigan: it must be Michigan. (Central Station.) 

From Buildings of Detroit. 

(I Got the Blues 'Cause) Similes Are Hard

Fun fact: the top Google hit for "crumpled trust" is a Lilo & Stitch fan fiction piece. ("As an adult, Lilo reflects back on the time when Victoria abandoned her to hang with Myrtle.")

This reminds me of what my grandfather always says: "Love is like a rusty pan. You can scrub it all you want,  but I wouldn't recommend cooking with it."

How to Look Good #5

"It goes with my corduroys."

You Should Live Here #1

More here.

How to Look Good #4

"When I get home I'm blasting Kraftwerk." (The Style Blogger)

"A Certain Pretendency"

This essay writes itself.

I want to take a moment to introduce an idea I've been working with for the last little while. It's a separate site, devoted exclusively to discussion about movies. To be precise, movies that in most thinking circles do not spark great interest on their merits alone (context is another beast entirely). So I've made up a game: pretend a canon of these films, imagining the choruses of adulation and the terms of their success. With apologies to Truffaut, I call it A Certain Pretendency. I hope it is ready soon. In the meantime, here is the "readme" document, first draft: 

The writings here are a series of thought experiments built around a single conceit: imagine this film (whichever is one is under inspection at the moment) belongs among the canon of great works and its makers deserve the default of thoughtful artistic intent ascribed regularly to the likes of Scorsese and Kubrick, Fellini and Bergman. 

That is, I want to commend designs and reward successes that probably don’t exist. It is a game of pretend.

By its nature, this enterprise runs against intuition. The point of departure is the point where we begin, and no later. If you want, you can create an alternate universe, one where the rules are different for aesthetics, politics, morality – whatever  you may judge by in any single case. Put this site in that universe. This is the universe where Showgirls is a "great film," without the looming parenthetical of Camp. Or, as it may turn out, because of a veritable quicksand of campy elements.

I hope it is obvious that this is not direct and honest criticism. It does not belong in a newspaper. Nor does it attempt to seriously combat or expand the canon; there is enough of that going on without my help.

Meanwhile, it is not a "comedy site," full stop. I am certain films will be punchlines in themselves, and their defenses laughably far from consensus. It seems likely that others may actually deserve some of the credit we will pretend for them.

What else? There is another leak to plug from the start: some of the arguments to be made will not hold much water. This is going to result in some dead-ends, unfortunately, where it makes no sense to go on. I don't promise proper endings. Give it a meta-function, if you want, but that is not always the goal. I'm not out to upend reviewing as a form.

So, really, this is a sandbox. Pretendency isn’t even a word (as far as I’ve found)! I’ll try not to get too carried away.

KWRS #2

Don't worry, I've arranged to have the Law of Diminishing Returns cancelled. It's good for the environment. (Time is one hour.)

1. "Band on the Run" - Paul McCartney & Wings

2. "Make Up" - Lou Reed

3. "In the Flowers" - Animal Collective

4. "The Boy in the Bubble" - Paul Simon

5. "Genius of Love" - Tom Tom Club

6. "Sunshowers" - M.I.A.

7. "The Last of the Famous International Playboys" - Morrissey

8. "Machine Gun Funk" - The Notorious B.I.G.

9. "Oh, Maker" - Janelle Monáe

10. "Gypsy Eyes" - The Jimi Hendrix Experience

11. "Somebody's Calling Me" - LCD Soundsystem

12. "Long Tall Sally" - Little Richard

13. "Freedom 90" - George Michael

14. "On the Road Again" - Bob Dylan


You won't believe how easy this is. Just click play below, leave this tab open, and get back to business. No hands required!

Mad Men withdrawal (Basic-Cable Blues)

Remember this old gem? This antique strip, dated October 20, 1960, is far ahead of its time.

UPDATE: I dug deep into the microfilm archives to bring up the cartoon in its original form:

Courtesy Bakumatsu generator.

Burning question

For some reason this is a major art installation that takes up an entire wall of a major museum in NYC. The artist responsible is standing beside you, is introduced and is asking you to dinner. Do you say yes?

How to Look Good #3

"The venue agrees to provide for Mr. Evans a stage environment featuring lighting of no less than three distinct hues at any one time."

KWRS #1

You can play along at home! (Or on your lunch hour.)

Hear it all right here:



1. "What I'd Say" - Ray Charles
2. "Natural Blues" - Moby
3. "I've Got A Feeling" - The Beatles
4. "I Love My Car" - Belle & Sebastian
5. "People Are Strange" - Das Racist
6. "Reflections After Jane" - The Clientele
7. "Maggot Brain" - Funkadelic
8. "Jolene" - Dolly Parton
9. "Car" - Built to Spill
10. "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)" - Aretha Franklin
11. "Vesuvius" - Sufjan Stevens
12. "Warwick Avenue" - Duffy
13. "Step Right Up" - Tom Waits


By my iTunes, we have one hour on the nose. See you again soon?

(VIDEO BONUS)

Breaking style (Non-Fiction Blues)

Right now I am reading Peter Doggett's You Never Give Me Your Money, a satisfying chronicle of the breakup of the Beatles. I make no claims of authority in this contentious field, but the book seems to my eyes to satisfy both established camps: those after historical precision and those who revel in the rich myth of the band. Still eighty pages to go, though, so hold the presses.

The presiding thesis, although I don't remember it being spoken explicitly, is Lennon's death as a turning point for the major players, their careers and their litigations. Believable. Whether the event derailed a train headed for reunion or merely solidified the lingering hope as a plot lost to fiction is implied throughout Doggett's thorough coverage, although I don't think it is the sort of question that has a particularly valuable answer. I doubt he thinks so either.

In any case, all this to say that Lennon's death is given special treatment within Doggett's work. A prologue details the hours and days after the shooting (the curtain opens on, of all people, James Taylor, a bit player here and a markedly sterile opening perspective). Later, once we've caught up chronologically, the facts-and-figures style used -- and with good reason -- throughout the book is momentarily cast aside, replaced with a few grisly images formed in a voice that, to be frank, made me shiver the first time through. I had to re-read it to make sense of the jarring effect this change in style had. I want to reproduce it here because it is so plain and yet so strange; note how the paragraph begins in the familiar style of the dutiful biographer (details, details) before veering head-on into oncoming carnage:

Lennon and Ono walked outside to the limousine, and during the journey they talked briefly about where they could get some food. They arrived home at 10.54 p.m. EST; six minutes later and the entrance to the Dakota would have been locked against intruders. Their driver could have taken them inside the safety of the courtyard, but Lennon asked him to stop at the kerb. He got out of the car first, and strode towards the entrance, clutching cassettes of Ono's song. As he neared the cubicle where the night guard was sitting, a voice called from the shadows: 'Mr. Lennon?' Then there was only a barrage of noise that echoed through his head. He stumbled forward a few paces, out of the instinct to survive, and fell to the ground. A torrent of blood, fragments of bone and fleshy tissues surged in his chest and was propelled out of his mouth, and oozed from the wounds torn in his torso and neck. His face was grotesquely squashed against the floor. There was a gurgle, which might have been a word lost in the ebb of his life force, and slowly his body rolled onto its side, having served its final purpose. Then the scene reels away, as if in horror, to a world from which John Lennon would always be absent. [Peter Doggett, You Never Give Me Your Money (Harper, 2009), 270]

 Again, to be honest, I wasn't sure I liked the way this moment was being handled. It resembles a bit too closely the cold of forensic reporting; perhaps that is the point. As I thought about it, however, the abrupt tonal shift seems not only warranted, but a masterful stroke. Of course, it is first warranted as a device of empathy: we are transported into the moment in a visceral and sudden way, almost entirely absent anywhere else in Doggett's writing. (That is not a criticism.) Lennon's death was an immense emotional weight, one that echoes here as would be difficult in a straightforward, obituary-like coverage. But that is not really what impresses me.

What has my attention is how discomfiting the change in style is, almost as though it were spliced in from another source -- a literary jump cut, perhaps. Even apart from its intensity of feeling, the writing stands out. In the rhythm of reading, especially when the flow is more or less chronological and the subjects held at arm's length, this is a sharp jolt.

The lesson: have ye a moment or scene ye wish to elevate, distinguish, or otherwise call attention to? Break stride, break style. Or clang pots together, or something.

With appropriate reverence:

Filed Under "No Longer Epic"

"What was it like? God, it was excruciating. A few of them we had to roll the hobos right off the mat. And then run. Just run."

Narrative is relative (Camera Dropping Blues)

oops from Chris Beckman on Vimeo. It won an award.

The most interesting thing is how quickly we establish a story around the footage. Well, that and the drop into a laundry basket.

Between Beckman and the octopus (band name alert), we have ourselves the seed of a movement.

How to Look Good #2

"At no time did I ever think, 'What would I do if a child were in my back seat?' It never crossed my mind."

How to Look Good #1

"Looking back, I consider this the start of my classical period. Melody became the most important thing."

Hark! A blog! (Bob Dylan Stereo Blues)

Welcome, welcome. What does he do when he is stuck? Why, start another blog!

And now, a word from our sponsors. (Yes, I made a website just to share this commercial with you.)

(from Dangerous Minds)

Mothers, don't let your children grow up to be audio snobs. But seriously, the strongest argument for mono versions is sharing earbuds with your girlfriend on the train. She will never rest her head on your shoulder if she can only hear the bass behind Lennon on "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." Stereo mixing: of course they split up! And you will too, if you defile your ears in this way.

...All my Beatles tracks are in stereo.