“Each label, like apartheid, multiplies us by our divide and whips us ’til we conform to lesser figures. What falls between the cracks is a pile of records stacked to the heights of talents hidden from the sun. Yet the energy they put into popularizing smut makes a star of a shiny polished gun.” — Saul Williams
Saul Williams’s newest album, Niggy Tardust, is available for download at the album’s website. $5 or free, depending on how much you want to pay. I’m willing to go out on a limb and say it’s worth the fiver.
Erin Bradley has something to say about people who think it’s cool to rant about women dressing up like skanks on Halloween. The gist of it is “screw off.”
I’m with her 100% on this one. I can’t think of any good reason why anyone should get to dictate what other people wear generally, and I think Bradley’s spot on with thinking that the breed of criticism leveraged against women who wear whatever “sexy” costume is misogyny with twist of self-righteous indignation. She points out that the frequently made point that it’s dangerous to dress like a skank and run around drunk isn’t particularly valid as people do this, you know, most weekends, not just over Halloween.
I’d add that it really just shouldn’t be dangerous. I’m not denying it is, but, in an ideal world, you could haul your half-dressed drunk ass home any time day or night and be safe, at least from other people. Which is to say, sure you might sprain your ankle or make an ass of yourself, but you shouldn’t get drugged and/or pulled into a dark alley. Given the rates of crimes against women in this nation (a rape every 2.5 minutes, for example), it seems pretty unlikely that the major risk factor is Halloween costumes. Further policing the behavior (sexual or otherwise) of women is not a valid solution to violence against women — it just replaces one for of oppression with another.
And, for the record, I was a slutty nurse this year (see above). It’s actually fairly difficult to buy an off the rack costume that’s not a slutty something or other and/or made for a dude. And, also, the costume had a cute little hat.
The man above is Gordon Bell. He’s a researcher at Microsoft, and among his projects is a personal archive. An obsessive personal archive. A personal archive that is perhaps the most exhaustive of its kind. The project is called MyLifeBits. As pointed out in the New Yorker in May, the project has some ambiguous implications for memory. How would our memories change if we could externally access information about any given day? How would we determine which days were important?
My own personal archive is much less extensive than Bell’s, and already I find that I rarely, if ever, access large sections of it. I take hundreds of photographs that I store and never look at again. I tend to file things by date or event; if I don’t recall the event, odds of me ever accessing the associated images are quite low. Further, storage raises the question of what makes an image or document important. Should I be prioritizing the most aesthetically pleasing photographs, or should I be prioritizing the ones that document the most significant events?
Amy Chance, professional make up artist, is one of the more glamorous people I’ve known. She does beautiful work for music videos, magazine shoots (see above), ads and all kinds of other things, and still has the patience to explain to me how to keep my eyeshadow from getting all wrinkly. In any case, she now has a blog, The Amy Face, where you can not only live vicariously but also read her thoughts on various products — apparently, Avon’s mark line is awesome. Who knew?
So, TV Links got shut down, which is by now, old news. However, here’s an excellent blog post filled up with TV Links replacements.
As the friend who pointed me to the post said, “When are they going to learn? Shut one down, and 36 sprout up in its place.” File sharing seems to work like that old wives’ tale about gray hairs — pluck one out, and two will grow in its place.
In which Quentin Tarantino argues that Top Gun is a subversive queer film. I’ll buy it. Almost. Also, I’ve seen Tarantino introduce films a couple of times, and I have to say, this is roughly the tone and level of frenetic gesture that he uses to describe almost all movies. It’s kind of infectious. In any case, the clip is from the movie Sleep With Me, in case you were curious.
My friend Melanie, alerted to my love of Dolly Parton, pointed me to the above video of Beth Ditto covering Dolly Parton while dressed as Dolly Parton. The video is pretty cute, particularly as Ditto gets the crowd singing along with her. Also, I forget that homegirl can actually sing pretty decently, and the clip is a good reminder not only of that, but also of how damn good Ditto is at pouring herself into clothes. That’s a hot dress right there.
Now, I could watch Dolly Parton fold laundry — I could probably listen to her talk about folding laundry. I find her appealing in ways that defy logic. But, here’s the deal: “Islands in the Stream.”
I really dislike this song. I don’t even really hate Kenny Rogers, but when I hear “Islands in the Stream” I’m deeply torn, because I want to turn it off, but then I know, any second, there will be Dolly Parton. “Islands in the Stream” makes me appreciate “Ghetto Superstar,” because I think the latter is a better track. Further, I think it serves as an excellent example of the way that sampling, cut-ups, mashups, and all those other forms of cultural re- and mis-appropriation can serve to create works that are fundamentally new even if they’re made of pre-existing parts.
Right. So, also, has anyone noticed that as Pamela Anderson ages/has more work done, she looks increasingly like a slightly less interesting version of Dolly Parton? Serious. It’s like someone shook all the spangles right off of Dolly. I mean, nothing against Pamela Anderson, she seems to be a dedicated mother with a bit of wit, and I’m all for that, but she’s no Dolly Parton.
Monday, I got to go to the Yo La Tengo ACL aftershow at the Parish here in Austin. I’ve been really fanboy about Yo La Tengo since I was 15 or 16, when I started listening to the band because I read a record review in Rolling Stone that suggested those who enjoyed the Velvet Underground might like the band’s latest. I, being a teenager in an isolated part of the U.S., loved the Velvet Underground, so I went and bought And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out immediately — and by immediately, I mean 2 weeks later after the special order I placed at the Hasting’s in Wichita Falls finally came in. The fates have worked against me for years, and I’ve not had the chance to see Yo La Tengo live before, so I was glad to get my chance.
Overall, the show was a real treat, but the highlights for me were (a) “the Crying of Lot G” (b) “You Don’t Love Me Yet.” Yes, that “You Don’t Love Me Yet,” the one by Roky Erickson, the heartbreaking one. The one that leaves want lingering everywhere in its wake. A couple years ago, I was, by some bizarre chain of events, at an industry party mid-summer where Erickson was the entertainment. Seeing him sing that song, solo with acoustic guitar, to an intimate audience of no more than 60 is one of those things that will likely stick with me for decades.
Also, this is the second time I’ve seen the Black, who opened for Yo La Tengo, play, and I have to say, I’m impressed. They’re a real good time. A real good rockabilly time. Put on your Levi’s shrink-to-fits and rock out.
