December 2010
62 posts
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The 1990s Project: Moonshake's "Eva Luna"
Janey Winterbauer has been pointing me toward the underground depths of the 1990s, and when I asked her to suggest a single album, she replied, “Moonshake, Eva Luna.”
If you have ever heard of Moonshake, you are cooler than me. They have only 57,000 plays on Last.fm; for comparison, Guided By Voices have 10,000,000 and Radiohead have 256,000,000. Timbuk 3 (“The Future’s...
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The 1990s Project: The Flaming Lips' "The Soft...
People are continuing to suggest that the Pitchfork top-100 list is not entirely suitable as source material for “Jay Gabler’s Nineties-Hatin’ Jamboree,” but today’s record challenged my general ideas about Pitchfork more than it did my general ideas about the music of the 90s. It’s fun! It’s summery! It’s happy! And, of course, it’s wistful....
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The 1990s Project: My Bloody Valentine's...
I was hoping to stir up a little shitstorm by hating on the music of the 1990s, and wow, has my Christmas dream ever come true. In what Nancy Cerkvenik is referring to as “Jay Gabler vs. the 90s,” I’m bumming people out and being called unfair. Other people are following me on Twitter to ride the hatewave. People are suggesting that I listen to bands that I recognize as bands and...
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The back of my head celebrates Christmas
Photos by my stalker—er, dad.
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The 1990s Project: Radiohead's "OK Computer"
Since I published a post arguing that the 1990s were the worst decade for music among all decades in the history of recorded music, my Twitter followers have pointed out that there was a lot of stuff I missed in the 90s—specifically, everything that wasn’t on the radio stations I listened to (top 40, adult contemporary, and classic rock). This is certainly true, and I’ve decided to do...
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Decades 1940-2000, Ranked by Musical Awesomeness
I’ve long argued that those of us born from about the mid-70s to the mid-80s should be given some kind of coolness handicap: extra credit for any awesomeness we’re able to achieve, given that we lived at least some of our most impressionable years during the 1990s, the armpit of modern musical history. I know there are those of you/us who are able to find redeeming value in the 90s,...
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Danger Den: "Awesome" has become a super-signifier →
beckylang:
“I took a class about semiotics once and it was really boring. I spent most of the time making up codes in my notebook, with which I took notes that I could not decipher come study time. But I remember learning that there is something called a “super-signifier,” a sign (or word) that…”
I too have been restraining myself from using the word...
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Architectural Digest: Never an "unpoetic word"
The January 2011 issue of Architectural Digest is the last in my subscription, which I took out on a whim a couple of years ago. I think I’ll let the subscription lapse, because I have more important things to spend time and money on, but I will miss AD.
The high-roller style bible has almost zero practical value to me and the photographs are nothing special; what I’ll miss is the...
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katie.sisneros: a tumblr. →
sizznerohz:
Conversations with Becky Lang about tumblr make me feel like an old-timey lady of yesteryear:
“Do you have a tumblr yet?”
“A whoosa-whatsa-now?”
“Tumblr. You can post things, follow people, do all sorts of stuff.”
“So, kind of like Twitter?”
“Kinda, I guess.”
“Or facebook?”
“No, not really….
I know the other day when I blogged about Katie Sisneros’s teeth, you...
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Gawker: "I Drank Many Alcoholic Beverages,"... →
Whenever someone who went to any branch of Harvard University commits a crime, they’re identified as “Harvard grad” in the headlines about the crime. In this piece, Gawker lumps a drunk vandal who went to Harvard Law together with a Cornell student who smuggled heroin and declares it a “banner week for the Ivy League!”
Fair enough—but now I want to see Florida...
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On tweeting versus Tweeting, The New Yorker goes...
When one issues an update via Twitter, is that to tweet or to Tweet? Twitter’s founders say that they prefer the lowercase form, which is also the Associated Press standard. (The AP also allows the awkward term “to Twitter.”) Reading a recent column by James Surowiecki, though, I discovered that The New Yorker apparently prefers to capitalize the verb Tweet:
“Certainly...
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“Heather: lettuce salad
Kate: fruit
Amy: Cracklin’ Oat Bran...”
– E-mail from Aunt Judy, regarding the Grossmann family Christmas celebration. This is how German-Americans roll in the 21st century. (Note that “lettuce” is not considered to be a redundant adjective when applied to “salad.” Because there are other things we call...
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A Twitter Exchange About Huey Lewis
Staciaann: Now listening to Huey Lewis & the News "Workin' for a Livin" as I edit pics from last night... yup.
JayGabler: I'm now listening to Huey Lewis & the News's "I Want a New Drug," and I won't tell you what I'm doing.
Staciaann: birth control?
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Banana Triptych
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“Ok I am looking for some recipes. Please forgive the spellings
Smearkugen...”
– E-mail to the extended family from Uncle Joe (response from Aunt Judy, possibly missing the point: “Sauerkraut is easy: just buy in a bag!”)
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Captain Beefheart Real-Names for Everyone
With the sad news of Captain Beefheart’s passing came the amazing news that the prog-rocker’s real name was Don Van Vliet (born Don Glen Vliet)—perhaps the best real name behind a stage name since Frances Gumm, a.k.a. Judy Garland.
That started me thinking: what if all our names were stage names, and we had real names full of exotic consonants? In such a world, here might be the real...
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God Bless America
Among Tumblrs that people love to recommend, kimjongillookingatthings is darkly amusing the first time you look at it, but then gets old. Holymaurymotherofgod, on the other hand, never gets old.
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Art Hounds: Chinese fashion, The Shiny Lights, and... →
Hear me recommend Fezziwig’s Feast on MPR. We had to re-record the part where I say “on the trail of exciting local art.” (Producer: “I’m sorry, but I’m going to need more on the exciting.”)
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Gawker: The Mysterious Case of Harvard's Pee... →
I don’t know what’s going on here, but it’s not the first time bodily excretions have been an issue on that campus. When I was at Harvard:
A graduate student was discovered to be urinating in jars (presumably for the sake of convenience) and leaving the jars in his dorm’s porter closet for the custodial staff to empty.
In the same grad student dorm, there was an incident...
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Re: The Critics Notebook in the December 13 Issue...
As an editor, I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that to say a movie depicts something “to the limits of consciousness” is a little over the top, even if you are reviewing a nine-hour documentary about the Holocaust.
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St. Paul Snow Emergency →
ericaaaaa:
The latest update on St. Paul’s snow emergency page should be saved as a relic of history. The biggest question is, of course, who writes these?
“I am sure many of you and our residents are exhausted from digging out cars, driveways and sidewalks. …
“We have been plowing streets for 36 continuous hours now and are using 80 plus pieces of equipment, some of which has...
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Virgin Mary apparitions near Green Bay shrine... →
My dad forwarded this link, which was forwarded to him by Father Steve O’Gara, a childhood friend of Dad’s. Father O’Gara (a member of the family that runs O’Gara’s Bar and Grill in St. Paul) is the priest who married my parents, and who baptized me. Father O’Gara’s note:
“Evidently BVM is not very particular about where she shows up!
sent from my...
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Atlantic City is Sad: A Blizzard-Bound...
Lea: When I lived in Jersey, I usually went to the Ocean City boardwalk. The Atlantic City boardwalk is too sad.
Me: Why?
Lea: You know, just a lot of people with sad stories. Like the busker who played piano with her tongue.
Me: Wow. That's quite the skill.
Lea: Well, she had to play with her tongue.
Me: Why?
Lea: She didn't have any arms or legs.
Me: Did she have a motorized chair?
Lea: No, she would be strapped into a rolling hospital bed, and someone would push her into position, then come take her away when she was done.
Me: Wow. Was she born without arms or legs?
Lea: Yes, and she had to make money to support her children.
Me: Children?
Lea: Three of them.
Me: Was she married?
Lea: No, the kids had three different fathers.
Me: Wow.
Lea: Child protection tried to take the kids away from her after the drug bust.
Me: Drug bust?
Lea: Yeah, she had a coke problem.
Me: Wow. But she was able to keep the kids?
Lea: She had to prove that she could take care of them.
Me: How?
Lea: She had to change a diaper, in court.
Me: With her mouth?
Lea: Obviously!
Me: That's quite a woman.
Lea: Yeah. Too bad she came to a tragic end.
Me: What do you mean?
Lea: You know how there are ramps that go up to the boardwalk?
Me: Yes.
Lea: Well, the guy who was pushing her accidentally let go.
Me: And her bed rolled down the ramp?
Lea: Into traffic. She was hit by a car, and died.
Me: And her children were left motherless.
Lea: See? Atlantic City is sad.
Ethical Quandry
Our landlord has a clearly stated policy that if any of us who live in the house leave dirty dishes in the sink, he’ll throw them in the trash. If I go to throw my coffee grounds away and see that someone’s dirty dishes have been thrown in the trash, is it wrong for me to go ahead and dump my coffee grounds on them?
