August 2008
Gas Is Sky-High and the Glaciers Are Melting. But... →
offnotesnotes:
Poptimist? (via Yglesias: “One of the weirdest things about political punditry is that ‘the status quo should remain the same!’ or ‘I’m taking the side of the powerful and wealthy interests who currently control American public policy!’ can be packaged as bold and contrarian.”)
You could just as easily throw “rockist” at this one, since it’s all about Proper Cars...
“This 1980s generation has lately been taken down by younger poptimists, who...”
– Play | The Rhapsody Editorial Music Blog: R.I.P. Manny Farber, Poptimist Critic (1917-2008)
Also— and I realize this is sort of the opposite of what Chuck’s trying to say here— what’s so noble about calling somebody names (“square,” “Luddite,” “sexist”) just because they don’t like the brands that...
“and every conversation I can now recall...
Build-A-Bear Factory
“If there is one point on which history repeats itself, it is this: that at certain fixed intervals the Russian Empire feels a need of expansion; that that neccessity is usually gratified at the expense of the Turk; that the other Powers, or some of them, take alarm, and attempt measures for curtailing the operation, with much the same result that the process of pruning produces on a healthy...
Criticism Spat →
Blog post detailing a recent comics blogosphere spat about the role of critics (the links within give you the background) - what amazes me in this, and it’s probably arising because the comics and particularly the webcomics world is a pretty small one, is the notion - held by this Kurtz guy and his allies, apparently - that the critic is somehow addressing the creator or trying to get the...
i was so all over this microstar shizz back in the...
pgwp:
maura:
and yes my first online alias was in honor of a smashing pumpkins b-side. i was 18 when i picked it, so cut me some slack.1
(the first online alias I ever came up with—also when I was about 18, in 1994 or 95—was “feesh”. I was into a hardcore/metal-ish band called Craw and they had a song called “The Feesh Crick Kid”.)
My first online alias - also c.95, maybe later? - was...
“Moore’s scripting, for example, seemed wildly sophisticated compared to the...”
– Attentiondeficitdisorderly Too Flat
Sean T. Collins revisits Watchmen. (via perpetua)
Weirdly I was just discussing this very thing (Moore’s scene transitions) with Alan, Mark S. etc on email. It’s a quirk that’s all over his earlier work and Watchmen has it in overdrive - like...
An exercise.
maura:
Please reblog with the reasons why you would, in your recreational-music-appreciation-moments, decide to listen to Grizzly Bear and/or Fleet Foxes and not other bands. This is a serious question.
Look, I have a beard, OK? It is my beard. It took time to grow. It connects me to nature, because nature is full of similarly HAIRY THINGS. If I want to listen to music made BY bearded men FOR...
“I am happy to admit having MILKED THE POPTIMISM CASH COW until its UDDERS...”
– Blue Lines Revisited
Yo, Tom, obviously I wasn’t saying anything as (obviously) idiotic as that! I wasn’t even suggesting anything conscious. And I definitely wasn’t saying that everybody who writes about “American Idol” does so in order to make money, or even makes money at all. What I was saying:... 