And I did not speak up, because I was not Tina Fey.
Sat next to Ann Coulter and Catherine Crier (they were dining with unidentified gentleman) during brunch at La Goulue on Sunday, March 20th. Catherine Crier’s face looked like a burn victim! She was pulled tight and had obviously had LOTS of work done. But, I can only comment on Ann’s “blonde” locks as she sat with her back towards me. While eavesdropping on Ann and Catherine’s conversation, heard a little snippet about their dislike of Tina Fey and “Saturday Night Live.” They believe that Tina is “un-American” and she shouldn’t be on television…which my friend and I found VERY ironic!
Witnessed an axis of evil power lunch on palm Sunday at la goulue – anne coulter and catherine crier ripping tina fey APART at the next table for the previous nights snl weekend update—crier actually pounding the table and saying shes vile and evil and cant stand her. Crier looks a lot like joan rivers surgically. fey and pohler rule.
—“Gawker Stalker,” 22 March 2005
o.H.M.y.
Y’all remember Tatu? Taty? t.A.T.y?
(Take your time. I’ll wait.)
Okay. I haven’t been following the news all that much, because, y’know, you load one fauxsapphic lolitapop eurochirp album onto your iPod, how many more do you need, and anyway, the pop-culture buzz only lasts so long. —Somewhere in intervening time, it seems, Yulia and Lena wised up to the exploitative nature of their predicament and cut out one of the middlemen by dropping their Svengali, Ivan Shapovalov. And promptly fell off the cult stud radar. There was apparently a reality show, framed around the recording of their new album? Which was supposed to drop on 14 March? Anybody?
Ah, but what about said ex-Svengali?
“I don’t care if she is Russian or not,” says Shapovalov. “This is a girl from the Internet. I can’t even determine the exact style of her music. She sings in Tadjik, Georgian and Pharsi languages. Her songs are about love, about life.”
Ladies and gentlemen: n.A.T.o.
“It’s my first concert, and anything can happen. But everything is going to be fine!” The CNN commentary fades slowly into a steady techno beat, soon joined by live drums and a heavy guitar riff opens up. As Nato lifts the microphone to her lips and starts to sing, the audience strains to hear her voice over the noise. But no matter how they crane their necks, they can see nothing of her face, hidden behind a black veil that shows only her eyes. The lyrics, too, are a bit of a mystery, as Nato doesn’t sing in Russian, but in Chechen and Georgian. One thing is clear: Nato’s outfitted to look like one of the infamous “Black Widows,” the female Chechen suicide bombers.
Confidential to Kriston Capps, to whom many thanks: Russian culture qua culture tends neither to be deaf nor immune; rather, it takes inordinate pride in the world’s deadest pan:
As a finale, Nato performs “Chor Javon,” a catchy song with clear hit potential that’s going to be released as her first single. As soon as she puts down the microphone, the guards jump on stage and fire paintballs into the crowd with their fake Kalashnikovs. Alexy, a 24 year-old concert-goer, gives the whole thing a tired smile. “I’d imagined this would be way more radical,” he says. “Machine guns, the whole silent guard routine—you’re really not going to shock anyone with that kind of thing these days.”
Alas!
Alas, a blog is back from database hell.
Homonemia; riverbeds; going up—
The inimitable ginmar saw Alexander and the second Bridget Jones movie in a theater that was apparently deep in the heart of the Unheimlichsenke, and what she has to say about the power dynamics of desire and being an object of desire end up cutting a lot closer to the heart of what Jed was getting at back in the summer of ’03 than, you know, the really quite terribly simple idea of tokening up your futurefic with a (fully realized) gay character (or two), no matter how happily ensconced in a fulfilling relationship well-validated by those about them. —This isn’t about tolerance, people; it’s about building new worlds. Even if only on paper.
Right now, I’m trying to figure out why my brain’s insisting on holding Victor/Victoria up against “The Riverbed of the World.” My next move apparently lies in limning how each does what it does and yet doesn’t what it wants done; when I get that figured out, I’ll make it. (Maybe I’ll stick ’em in a room for a bit and let ’em interrogate each other.) —If nothing else, it’s been instructive to reflect on how a contained, mythologized setting such as the theatrical demimonde can, like the aggressively (didactically) otherworldly settings of (some) SF, serve as a source of that paradoxical ostranenie the audience expects: the unheimlich that isn’t. Just, you know, not as much. —But that leaves me feeling like I’m on the verge of telling everyone something they already know, so maybe instead I’ll point out how much fun it is to read The Intuitionist as an SF novel? (Though it was odd, running into Ben Urich like that.)
Next year, in Glocca Morra.
(I’ve really got to work on the posting slump that seems to hit me every January or so, right about when folks start sniffing around for places to put their Koufax votes, you know?) —Oh, hey! The winners have been announced. Go, look, see. Me, I’m just gonna highlight Mouse Words, who handily trounced James Wolcott and Michael Bérubé to walk off with the Best New Blog award. No mean feat, that.
Pitchforking.
I don’t read enough to know whether we really ought to stop reading it to save all of music journalism, but what I have read bugs me just enough to make me not all that eager to read more. I mean, the comparison that opens the thing I’m going to talk about in a minute, with the “food bands” and “not since Cibo Matto,” sure, it makes a quirky-cute sort of sense, I suppose, since Cibo Matto had a lot of songs about food on Viva! La Woman, okay, but still, I mean, you end up juxtaposing Cibo Matto and the Books as if the logic of your lede hadn’t just leaped the bounds of common sense and run amok through your CD collection, grabbing referents willy-nill. You can almost smell the flopsweat: the writer, staring at the screen, cudgelling their forebrain for a taste of something quirky-cute to get you to read on, spinning aimlessly in an Æron chair picked up cheap at a dot-bomb clearance sale—okay, maybe that’s a bit much, but when they reach down to pick up the pencil that fell from the ceiling tile where they’d stuck it with a perfect wrist-flip toss maybe fifteen minutes before, they happen upon sitting back up, pencil in hand, to glance down at the bog-standard press pack and note that when asked to describe themselves the Books came up with “blipworld / fakegrass / speedblues / chamberclick / eccentrock / country&eastern / glitch post-anything music with samples,” and then followed that up with “food band.” And the writer sighs and says food band, Cibo Matto, whatever, let’s run with it, I’ve got to get this fucking blurb finished for God’s sake.
Maybe it didn’t happen that way. Whatever. For once I don’t care so much about form, not when there’s content that makes me sit up and cheer like this:
Late in the ’04, The Books finished their latest full-length, Lost and Safe, which has been set for an April 5 release on Tomlab.
And look! Right underneath it! The Decemberists’ new album, Picaresque! Out on the 22nd of March! And they’re touring, too! And Petra Haden’s with them! In Portland on the 17th!
So, yeah, you say stuff like that enough of the time, it doesn’t matter so much how you go about saying it. I guess. Maybe.
Sponge 1, kulturkampf 0.
I’m not a huge fan of the comments over at Kevin Drum’s place. I’m usually not that fond of the comments on high-traffic political sites: slapshot chuckles, me-too high-fives, the distressing propensity of entirely too many no matter their ostensible politics to get all chest-thumpy and dick-wavy—really, the sheer number of smoke-this-suck-that-stick-it-where-they-ain’t-no-lube I wade through sometimes makes me think that evolutionary psychologists aren’t all blowing smoke, and the serious business of government is nothing more than primate dominance dynamics with keyboards. —Political Animal isn’t so much with the sodomite-catamite power struggle, and his own personal trolls Al and Charlie saw their shadows a while ago, or something, and don’t come out from under their bridges so much these days, but the dreary Camazotzian drone of Tim Graham Kevin’s Konscience still ends up suffocating most threads with the tragic call-and-response that violates rule no. 1 of the internet everywhere.
Still, I’m glad I cruised through the remarks following Amy Sullivan’s recent post on Tinky Winky 2: Porifera Boogaloo. If I’d written it off, I’d’ve missed the wonderful Gospel according to NTodd:
Does that mean I can wear cotton/wool blend pants, and touch my wife during her period?
Yes. The sponge has set us free.
(Really, I’m shocked at the good Doctor Stickypants’ sadly slackening grasp of the Zeitgeist. Everybody knows Spongebob is all about the stoners.)
And just what the hell is up with all that coal in Newcastle, huh?
So I’ve got a minute (a single, precious, golden minute) while I’m waiting for a database to rebuild its sorry ass, and what do I do with it? I go check out the Ain’t it Cool report on last night’s Serenity screening, that’s what I do. —Spoiler free, y’all. Almost entirely. Anyway. What else did I do? I scrolled the messages posted at the bottom (since rebuilding its sorry ass takes more than a single, precious, golden minute: I also calculated next week’s production, figured out some staffing issues, and pulled an executive decision about a document type from thin air), that’s what I did, and buried in the shitstorm, I stumbled over this gem of a plaintive cry for help:
Fucking sci-fi fanboy shit. That’s all this site cares about anymore.
Too true! Too true!
Ladies and gentlemen—
—the Finnish Men’s Shouting Choir.
Things to remember.
I’d never suggest How Much for Just the Planet? was in the same league as Singin’ in the Rain; not as sublimely silly, for one thing, but neither is it so athletically earnest. —But it’s all a matter of degree and not of kind: I would not hesitate, would in fact leap to recommend it, as an antidote to the sort of day I’ve had. Splash of Maker’s Mark and sleepy kitten optional.
(When the old skool Klingon security officer Happy Gilmores his first tee-off to within thirty yards of the green, you will have to pick the kitten back up and apologize most sincerely for having giggled him off your chest and onto the floor. I’m just sayin’.)
Utterly unrelated (except in all the ways it’s not), you have got to get yourself some Lady Sovereign. Read here, here, and, oh, here; then download here and, oh, shit yeah, here, while you still can.
Added bonus.
While cruising some Goats-related sites on the internet for the bit prior, I stumbled across as neat a piece of writing advice as you could ask for, tossed off the cuff of an engaging interview. So, ladies and gentlemen, the Mountain Goat himself, John Darnielle:
The problem with most people that write that way is that they focus more on “is it true?” than “is it good writing?” Most things don’t resonate when they’re true; it’s how the audience hears it when it doesn’t have anything to do with them. So I’ve always been resistant towards that, from since I was a kid and wanted to become a writer. They’d say, write about what you know, and I’d say I’m a fucking kid! [laughs] I don’t know anything—I wanna write about monsters! But at the same time, I think my new songs are so much better than the old songs, and they’re more rooted in truth. I guess what I’m going at is, first learn to write, then try to write about yourself, once you’re able to distance yourself, to lose the notion that what was so spectacular to you isn’t necessarily so spectacular to everyone.
“...the first time as satire, the second as product launch.”
These guys probably thought they were being funny.
We buy Kenworth semi chassis and build SUVs on them. Shown is the Dominator model, which includes the eight rear wheels for handling those trips to Sam’s Club.
FEATURES:
- Fits under most bridge underpasses.
- The first SUV to be rated in Gallons per Mile by the EPA
- Meet interesting people while waiting in line at Interstate Weight Stations.
- When kids do the arm signal, you get to honk that really cool air horn!
- Get a big rush when your Firestone tires blow out.
- Lots of road-hugging weight for occupant protection, the ultimate in safety.
- Can seat 20. Go ahead, take the whole soccer team.
- Can tow your camper, yacht, a trailer-load of frozen pizzas, or even your house!
- Yours for under $200,000 ($100,000 for truck chassis + $100,000 standard SUV markup)
But no—they were visionaries.
POSSIBLY TOO MUCH TRUCK. LIKE THAT’S A PROBLEM.
Your eyes don’t deceive you. It’s a pickup truck. From International. Which makes it much more than a pickup truck. It’s an International®CXT—born out of the proven International 7300 severe service truck used by professionals for the most rugged applications.
So you get all the attributes of a commercial truck—but you don’t need a commercial driver’s license to drive it.*
The legendary International®DT 466 diesel engine provides up to 6 tons of hauling power.** The air-ride cab and seats provide an exceptionally smooth ride. And aspacious (sic) and well-appointed interior ensures automotive-like comfort and convenience.
The result of more than a century of leadership in the truck market, the International CXT delivers performance. In a big way
*State restrictions may apply. Talk to your local motor vehicle department.
**Tow hitch required at extra cost.
Bushgate.
James Wolcott’s take is funnier, but the Editors are far more shrill. —Also, the Editors out-do Josh Marshall’s I-will-show-you-hardball-in-a-handful-of-dusty-paperwork hints one better, with some actual slivers of red meat.
On the other hand, last minute perusal of hithery-thithery pings brings up a pithy post from Majikthise, which will prove, I’m afraid, all too germane to, well, everything.
(Sir, I’m worried about our mood swings.)
Hot or Nazi?
Oh, go read Barry’s latest. If you manage not to spit coffee over the keyboard at his favorite quote, I’ll give you a dollar.
No actual dollars will be exchanged. Offer expires soon enough. Void where prohibited by law, and Oregon.
Why, yes. I would jump off a bridge just like everybody else.
Kelly; Gatsby; Ellington; cats; Picasso; Yeats; Keaton; O’Connor; To Have and Have Not; de Kooning; The Who; Larkin; dunno from Trollope, so pass; Holliday; can I pass without admitting that I’ve yet to go through a Russian phase; I think I’d prefer Greene, but pass; Graham; vegetarian, but burgers; Letterman, for fuck’s sake; Cat Power; Verdi; Monroe; Cash; I’ll punt the Amis question; Mitchum; Morris; Vermeer; Tchaikovsky; this is like a question between wine and, you know, that light stuff you drink when it’s hot; Coward; Grosse Pointe Blank; pass; and pass again; Turner; also, I’ve never really gone through a ’50s revisionist Western period, so pass; comedy; fall, though we prefer autumn; Sopranos; Gershwin and Gershwin; James; sunrise (one loves more the rarer seen); Porter; Mac, for God’s sake; New York ditto; um, pass; Van Gogh; Elvis Costello; blog; Olivier; which one has “Luck be a Lady”?; Chinatown; Election; minimalism; Daffy; the very question is telling, but hey: post, baby; Batman; Emmylou Harris has really long hair, and I like her voice, but I know little else and nothing at all about Lucinda Williams, so pass; Johnson, because, hey, dictionary; I’m going to, um, pass; Dick Van Dyke; Eames; I love Double Indemnity, but I haven’t seen Out of the Past, and I want to, so pass; Die Zauberflöte, so pass; green; Midsummer’s; opera; theatre (theater is the building, dear boy); one could not possibly decide this one without more context, so pass; Northwest; Sargent; I haven’t even read enough Kundera, so pass; Music Man (another head-scratcher); I’m a vegetarian, I eat sushi, do the math; I’m going to punt this one, Alex; Albee; I haven’t read Dove, so pass; who? what? (pass); Wright; again with the who and the what and the pass; watercolor; subway (when I can get it); Stravinsky; neither, but crunchy, if I must; mumble mumble (pass); Mozart; the ’20s; Moby-Dick; I need to get a grip on Mann, so pass; I’ve heard one, I think, but not the other, or maybe I have, but anyway, pass; Dickinson; Lincoln; Mann; Italian; and I think I’ll be blasphemous and agree: piano; ate them once in Italy and, well, that’s not why I’m a vegetarian, but I’ll have to go with no; long—no, longer—keep going, no, I need some more—a bit more—another epilogue? Sure—oh, a few more pages couldn’t hurt anybody—is that it? Are you done?; swing (which feels like a failing); Judgment, baby. —Which gives me a TCCI of 55%; that, and a buck-fifty, and I can get a 16 oz. coffee tomorrow, with a little room for cream.
Piece out.
I keep forgetting to snag a snap of a no fish, so until then: Hitherby Dragons backs ever-so-insouciantly into the grand pieblogging meme.
