February 2010
January 2010
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“Get ready to scratch your heads, America.”
– Damon Lindelof, on the soon-to-premiere final season of Lost, in the New York Times.
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Bunch of phonies mourn J.D. Salinger →
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“They have their one big idea—making literate, wordy lyrics over big anthemic...”
– Hold Steady keyboardist / consummate showman Franz Nicolay, on why he’s leaving the band, in Paste.
I sympathize with Nicolay — Stay Positive struck me as the conclusive Hold Steady record, and I also have trouble seeing where they go from here. That said, I worry about his plans to...
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Frantic Steve Jobs Stays Up All Night Designing... →
“Come on, Steve, just think—think, dammit—you’re running out of time,” the exhausted CEO said as he glued nine separate iPhones to the back of a plastic cafeteria tray. “Okay, yeah, this will work. This will definitely work. Just need to write ‘tablet’ on this little strip of masking tape here and I’m golden. Oh, come on, you piece of shit! Just stick...
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Stream the new Midlake and accelerate your beard... →
There’s a Renaissance Faire in hell, and you’re invited.
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“Hey Jude,” Wilson Pickett. “Hey...
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“If you work really hard and are kind, amazing things will happen to you.”
– Conan O’Brien, in his show-closing address. He went out with amazing grace, weirdly endearing comedy and a pretty fucking spectacular “Freebird.”
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Now that I've made these wax wings I might as well... →
Joanna Newsom’s forthcoming album will be a triple LP.
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David Foster Wallace tributes →
Kottke links to a free PDF with tributes from Don DeLillo, Zadie Smith and Wallace’s sister, among others.
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Conan's $1.5 million segment →
In an effort to spend as much of NBC’s money as possible before the end of his show, Conan last night unveiled the Bugatti Veyron Mouse, which is a mouse made out of the most expensive car in the world. And he introduced it to the strains of the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction,” which is incredibly expensive to broadcast. Conan is on fire right now.
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Free, full-length Beatles/Wu-Tang Mash-Up →
The Beatles samples on this bootleg — Enter the Magical Mystery Chambers — are actually fairly subtle, giving Wu-Tang’s rhymes room to breathe. “Got Your Money” with “You Never Give Me Your Money” was a mash-up that needed to exist, even if the vocal rhythm is totally at odds with the melody. (via)
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“Before a pattern can be desired by the brain, it must play hard to get. Music...”
– Jonah Lehrer on music and the brain.
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“I was getting a little bit exhausted over having so much responsibility over the...”
– James Mercer, on taking a hiatus from the Shins, in Quietus. (Translation: “I was getting a little bit exhausted over firing my old band mates and forcing them to open taco carts to put food on their families, so I wanted to record something as popular as ‘Crazy’ and never have to...
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Beach House's latest album not as boring as Beach... →
Stream it at NPR. You might as well — it’s the consensus best album of 2010, and at first listen seems much more lively than the dirge-like Devotion. Track four even borders on “upbeat.” Hurry now, the bandwagon is leaving the station.
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“There has been much speculation about the new “Late Night with Conan O’Brien.”...”
– Conan O’Brien, writing a mock review of his then-new show after it debuted to much fanfare and critical fallout. (via gregbrown)
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Watch“Don’t You (Forget About Me),” Death Cab for Cutie. Can somebody who understands the art of singing live explain why — or in what ways — Ben Gibbard is so bad at it? I’m a Death Cab fan, but they were horrible when I saw them live, and Gibbard’s singing was the biggest reason why. It seems to me like he has trouble breathing up there, like he can’t...
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WatchWell you guys, there are other things happening in late night beyond Jay and CoCo’s fight to the death. For example! Here’s Jimmy Fallon reprising his Neil Young impression to sing the latest Internet viral smash, “Pants on the Ground.” Which I had not seen until this morning but, I must tell you, is a very good Internet viral smash. “Pants on the Ground” is...
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Cool 'Infinite Jest' project →
Columbia University commissioned filmmakers to create the 70 fictional films of James Incandenza. An exhibition opens later this month.
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“Listen, Jay, Conan and I have children—all you have to take care of is cars. I...”
– Jimmy Kimmel, speaking to Jay Leno, on Leno’s 10 at 10 segment. Just gob-smackingly brutal stuff here, and the best truth-to-power moment since Colbert at the White House Correspondent Association dinner. (“The best prank I ever pulled was I told a guy that—five years from now—I’m...
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More bad news in music this year →
Joanna Newsom is releasing another album.
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“For most people here, tragedy is more common than lunch.”
– My friend Jonathan M. Katz, the AP’s man in Haiti, in a riveting first-person account of the earthquake. I’ve always been proud to know this guy, but today I’m bursting.
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X-Factor Vs American Idol →
tomewing:
Under its familiar surface — themed weeks, judging panels, phone vote — The X Factor shifts power from voters to judges. Cowell and company will play a far more important role in the new show, with greater say over who performs, what they perform, and what their fate is.
This is a thing by me, for the Vulture, w/my “entertainment analyst” hat on. A little-worn hat.
Finally someone...
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Gay Teen Worried he Might Be Christian →
“At first glance, high school senior Lucas Faber, 18, seems like any ordinary gay teen. He’s a member of his school’s swing choir, enjoys shopping at the mall, and has sex with other males his age. But lately, a growing worry has begun to plague this young gay man. A gnawing feeling that, deep down, he may be a fundamentalist, right-wing Christian.”
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Cool teaser trailer for David Simon's 'Treme' →
Looks like somebody’s getting ready to teach us how to watch television again.
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“Emblem of the World,” Dirty...
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Stream the new Spoon →
“Mystery Zone” and “Written in Reverse” are both good enough to stand with the band’s best work. (via)
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“The xx Gon’ Give It To Ya (DMX vs. The...
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Yet more new Frightened Rabbit →
“Nothing Like You” continues the streak of awesomeness found within every song we’ve heard so far off The Winter of Mixed-Drinks. Out in March, but surely it is time for a leak? (via Kevin, who also found these early Frightened Rabbit demos on the Fat Cat site.)
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“Doing that yourself around real life (i.e. jobs, children and their ceaseless...”
– The Wrens, on running a small business and why they have yet to start recording a follow-up to The Meadowlands, in their often LOL-worthy 2010 forecast. (See also: their 2009 year in review.)