October 2008
70 posts
“Why not have a television series about a cop who travels back to various points...”
– I absolutely love socialist television criticism.
___________________________________________________________________
“George also wrote a dirty book — I can’t remember the name —...”
– Richard Seaver answers the question “what would erotic fiction written by George Plimpton be like?” in Nelson Aldrich’s new Plimpton oral history, George Being George. During Plimpton’s early years in Paris, he worked for Maurice Giordias’ Olympia Press, a small press...
How World War Tw...er, Vietnam shaped John... →
Newsweek’s Jon Meachem perfectly expresses on NPR something I’ve found very interesting about how John McCain has been covered in the popular media. “I sometimes really have to make an effort to remind myself that John McCain fought in Vietnam and not in the Second World War,” he says. “I’m not being cute about his age; he just feels like a figure from that war...
Walking tour of the Ninth Ward. →
From Triple Canopy.
On the subject of aesthetics, touring, psychogeography, historical context and related issues, I saw a fascinating show called Ground Scores this summer at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco consisting of several wildly imaginative bus and walking tours in and around sites in the Bay Area — Treasure Island, the Presidio, people’s private home...
WatchYou’ve already heard MTV finally put all of their video archives online here, so this is a good excuse to go ahead and watch some Morrissey videos. This one’s for you, Roseanne Cheng, wherever you are!
Top six made-up bestsellers (softcover fiction),...
1 THAT WAS NO MAN, by Barry Adkins Clark. (Penguin, $12.) Three wealthy college students make a deadly bet, except it was all a dream.
2 FINAL BENEDICTION, by Wes R. Lethert. (New American Library, $22) A close-knit Italian family’s mysterious visitor in Brooklyn in 1955 may be a highly-intelligent porpoise.
3 THE WICHITAIAN, by Geers McDougall. (HarperOne, $24.00) A...
1 tag
“He is the only male performer I have ever seen to whom I responded sexually; it...”
– Lester Bangs on Elvis Presley, 1977. More on the “erection of the heart.”
3 tags
1 tag
“Magic will be created when an unconventional person comes to stay.”
– Surprisingly sexy fortune cookie fortune from the Village Wok in Stadium Village.
1 tag
"Erection of the heart." →
“The leading Obama cheerleader among the commentariat is Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter, whose ‘erection of the heart’ for the candidate has no match,” writes Slate’s Jack Shafer.
I couldn’t believe I’d read this phrase; I recognized it instantly. As Shafer points out in a footnote, the phrase was coined by critic Lester Bangs to describe his reaction to...
Gram Parsons and the Flying Burrito Brothers,...
American RadioWorks: Campaign '68 →
Excellent hour-long radio documentary about the 1968 campaign between Humphrey, Nixon and Wallace.
I’ve always found McCarthy to be the most inspiring figure here; RFK was certainly a great man, but it was Gene that challenged the Johnson administration’s prosecution of the Vietnam War initially, essentially ending LBJ’s presidency and making it safe for other anti-war Democrats...
50000000 SPARBER FANS CAN'T BE WRONG: THE ARCHIVE:... →
MNSpeak editor Max Sparber has recently been posting to his blog archival film reviews he’d written during the go-go ’90s, presumably for either City Pages here in MSP, or for CP’s counterpart in Omaha (if I have my Sparber bio straight). It’s been interesting to watch for a few different reasons; primarily as a reminder that the pop cultural canon, such as it is,...
1 tag
1 tag
“I am constantly disappointed by the caliber of men in Minneapolis. They lack...”
– A plea for civility from the depths of Craigslist! Let’s get it together, gentlemen! The ladies are being “constantly disappointed”! For God’s sake, let’s try to remember the Four I’s (and One C)!
"As far as being a poet, I am specially trained to... →
A short interview in City Pages with St. Paul’s immortal Paul Dominic Dickinson.
"I couldn't believe how beautiful and polite you... →
I have always, always maintained that politeness is a very under-appreciated metric for determining the suitability of potential romantic partners. Hats off to this young woman for recognizing that.
WatchSuburban Peril! A video by Brennan Vance.
_______________________________________________________________________
1 tag
WatchFrench-Catalan pianist Pascal Comelade on the toy piano. Des “putain, des “voilààà”, des “situationnistes d’opérettes,” et au milieu, la magie de miniatures entre bal catalan et rock de chambre. Via Blogtheque, via Brady Bergeson.
__________________________________________________________________________
1 tag
The incomparable Katie Beach.
Let’s take a break from our usual accordion, Vietnam War and blurry food-related offerings to offer our best birthday wishes today to perhaps my greatest friend, the incomparable Mrs. Katie Beach of Louisville, Kentucky. Today she is 29 years old!
Katie Beach is a librarian, but she has also been a mailman, a gallery owner, a caricaturist, a grrl-band bassist, a manifesto writer (her 2005...
1 tag
"Have you ever seen such a huge balalaika?" →
Clear your calendar for the rest of the day and spend it on English Russia, “a daily entertainment blog devoted to the events happening in Russian speaking countries, such as Russia (Russian Federation), Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Kazakhstan, etc.”
There’s so much strange, amusing stuff in there it’s hard to know where to begin, but the definite highlight is a drunken...
Twenty-four abandoned cities. →
Via Nate. The story of Famagusta, Cyprus is nicely covered in Alan Weisman’s The World Without Us.
This is sort of obvious in this context, but that’s OK.
1 tag
Alternate arrangements:
S. 12th
South 12th
S. Twelfth
South Twelfth
Old Man Orville. →
Whom I saw play an impromptu show at the Bedlam Theater this weekend. They were remarkable. They confirmed my recent suspicions that my personal level of interest in seeing bands without accordion players has dropped to virtually zero.
Intern drama in the east metro! →
_________________________________________________________________________________
1 tag
“Philly? They suck! [pause] Guess I’m a Phillies fan.”
– Nate on the 2008 World Series.
“Look at the accordion. In the United States, the accordion is seen as the least...”
– -Gogol Bordello frontman Eugene Hutz in New York magazine’s Vulture blog.
Handily proving his point, an animated GIF below by Russian artist Olia Lialina.
2 tags
Step into my Wunderkammern… →
A fascinating history of robots and replicants, as written for This Recording by my most recent personal nerd-crush, the incomparable Molly Lambert.
________________________________________________________________________
“The Thresher,” Phil Ochs, from his...