February 2011
22 posts
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January 2011
52 posts
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Plumb tuckered: Blogging for Dummies (That would... →
Melanie Danke took a class on blogging I taught via the Twin Cities Media Alliance last fall, and she just sent the blog entry she wrote summarizing the wisdom I imparted to her. Point 6 is where you might realize I’d recently been talking with Becky Lang.
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The Moody Blues Will Take Your Money NOW
The Moody Blues are coming to the Orpheum on June 9, and look. At. These. Badasses. John Lodge (far right) is like, “I’m old, and I’m rich, and I’m in the Moody Blues, bitch! So you all can give me $103.50, or go fuck yourselves.”
Compare:
You’ve got “Helter Skelter” and “Yesterday,” Paul. Now goddamn act like it.
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The Power of Aesthetics →
I really like this blog post by my friend Theresa Madeus of Mad King Thomas, not only because it’s an insightful perspective on a Walker Art Center performance I also saw last week (here’s my Daily Planet review), but because the essential point is true of both art and journalism. “This distinction between ‘art’ and ‘fact presentation’ is denying the ...
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Friday: Das Racist at Carleton →
Here’s what I remember about my night in a Northfield hot tub with Sarah Heuer, Becky Lang, Katie Sisneros, Ryan Warner, and Das Racist.
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No Money, Mo' Problems: Why even successful bands... →
An interesting read (via teganandsarabanter) with lots of gory details from members of bands who tour nationally. The article focuses on bands at the level of club tours—bands who have national or even international followings, but in most cities outside of their hometown probably can’t fill a venue bigger than a small or midsized club. I guess I’m not surprised to learn that those...
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“I have a very special opportunity to pass on to you. I am casting...”
– From an e-mail. NBC doesn’t hire casting producers for their facility with grammar or punctuation.
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“Visitors to the Science Museum of Minnesota’s King Tut exhibit will have a...”
– From a press release. I want to hire that sarcastic male server who works late nights at Little Tijuana to go stand at the St. Paul Grill, and if anyone orders a $13.50 “Tutini,” to slap them full across the face.
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Last Night: 1/15/11
Photos for my Vita.mn post about my night at the Walker Art Center and Paper Moose Jumpsuit & Co.
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Last Night: 1/13/11
Photos for my post in Vita.mn: MPLS.TV collective meeting, Recess at the Varsity, Henry the dog.
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“Like Luther Vandross, I’m fucking up the West Coast.”
– Dr. Dre, you may be the artist to revise my opinion of music in the 90s.
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The 1990s Project: Shania Twain's "Come On Over"
Shania Twain is not on Pitchfork’s list of the best albums of the 90s; nor is Garth Brooks or George Strait. My friends have suggested that I deviate from the list to try 90s pop-grunge, power pop, neo-soul, underground rock, and white-boy funk, but no one has suggested that I listen to any country music from the 90s. I can understand why, but objectively, country’s surge in popularity...
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Feel the hotness
LOL/OMG has been kind enough to designate me a “ringer” in the 2011 Vita.mn hotness contest. They neglected, though, to make mention of what’s hottest about me: my status as a regular cast member on Freaky Deeky. In all modesty, when you line me up next to the competition, I think I’m looking pretty good.
Hotness nominee Cadillac Kolstad:
Hotness nominee me:
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The 1990s Project: 10,000 Maniacs' "Our Time In...
I listened to this album last night, and I thought I should blog about it to show that I don’t just automatically hate everything that came out in the 90s. This album is one of my all-time favorites, and has been since it was released in 1992.
10,000 Maniacs were a strange and wonderful group, founded in upstate New York in 1981, when frontwoman Natalie Merchant was a precocious...
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Disguise is the ultimate weapon
Last month I blogged about my childhood love for Transformers, and about my disappointment with their current incarnation as generic engines of violence in Michael Bay’s movies. Then, among my Christmas gifts from my family was a Transformer toy that came in a Happy Meal. This kid has one too:
(Photo from the Fully Jointed Play Figures blog, which is exactly the kind of blog I would make...
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The 1990s Project: Marcy Playground
After being told, and reminded, by Sarah Heuer, today I took a listen to Marcy Playground’s self-titled debut. I believe this makes me one of only two people besides Sarah to have listened to this album in its entirety since its release in 1997.
Or maybe I’m underestimating Marcy Playground’s enduring appeal. This “Sex and Candy Hot Pant” ($14.99) is among the...
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The 1990s Project: "The Bodyguard" soundtrack
After yesterday’s encounter with Pavement, I decided I’d had it for a while with critics’ darlings, and that for the next 90s album I’d let the people choose. Can 44 million people be wrong?
The soundtrack to The Bodyguard (1992) was the best-selling album of the 1990s, and remains the all-time best-selling soundtrack album. With “I Will Always Love You,”...
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The 1990s Project: Pavement's "Slanted &...
I’m only on #5 of Pitchfork’s top albums of the 90s list, but I think I get it. Pitchfork likes things that are dense and challenging and elliptical and self-conscious. Critics.
In my original post bashing the 90s, I wrote that “the decade was at best a time of fruitful transition.” 11 albums into my revisiting of 90s music, the decade still feels kind of squeezed in...
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“Pretty soon some Brazilian drug lord is going to have a giant mural of the three...”
– Katie Sisneros, in an e-mail to Becky Lang and me about the meteoric success of The Tangential
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The Tangential: My What Tan Gentials You Have:... →
thetangential:
WHAT IS THE TANGENTIAL? A creative writing blog based in Minneapolis, with the assignment “Write whatever you want, just try not to be boring. Try not to suck.” WHY IS THE TANGENTIAL? We want to create a centralized, well-designed site for creative writing in Minneapolis. A place for…
This is a new creative writing project I’ve started with Becky Lang and Katie...
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The 1990s Project: Matthew Sweet's "100% Fun"
After Fugazi forced me to admit that hardcore is not my kind of core, Kyle Matteson suggested that “if it’s great pop rock from the 90s you seek…try Matthew Sweet, The Posies, Brendan Benson’s first album, Sloan & Jellyfish.” With pleasure.
Matthew Sweet’s gone through some interesting looks in his life. Here he is as a kid on the cover of 100% Fun, the...
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The 1990s Project: Fugazi's "Red Medicine"
“The best parts of 90s music have to do with women,” tweets Deb Carver.
VJ Matt Visionquest respectfully disagrees. “If you wanna hear the 90s,” he tweets, “listen to any Fugazi record.”
Though I’m sure Matt doesn’t give a shit, it so happens that Pitchfork agrees that Fugazi were among the best the 90s had to offer. At #42 in Pitchfork’s...
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The 1990s Project: Neutral Milk Hotel's "In the...
Since Twitter has today offered no suggestions for albums that will raise my opinion of music in the 90s, I returned to Pitchfork’s list, where I’m at what they call the fourth-greatest album of the 1990s: In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, the 1998 release that was the second and last full-length album by Neutral Milk Hotel.
Yes, that is Paris Hilton with her favorite Neutral Milk...
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21st century instructors
This is a graphic from the instructor’s manual for the software used by the college where I teach online. Yes, students, that is what an online instructor looks like. Not like this:
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The 1990s Project: Erykah Badu's "Baduizm"
“Please tell me that you’ll review Baduizm and [D’Angelo’s] Brown Sugar too!” says Meredith Westin. “Please?”
Okay, well, let’s start slow. Slow and easy. Slow, easy, and slinky.
If nothing else, this project is reminding me that the 1990s were a lot more than just grunge and Boyz II Men. Only seven albums in, I’ve already hit the funky...
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The 1990s Project: Liz Phair's "Exile in Guyville"
“So when are you gonna get to Exile in Guyville?” asked Deb Carver. “The best parts of 90s music have to do with women.” I agree: if you think of 90s music as a battle of the sexes, women won.
“I’ll just come right out and say it,” writes Pitchfork’s Rob Mitchum. “It’s been all downhill for Liz since this one.” Mitchum...
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The 1990s Project: Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Blood...
Though he hadn’t looked at the Pitchfork Best 100 Albums of the 90s list, admitted Rob Callahan, “I’ll go on a limb & say Red Hot Chili Peppers Blood Sugar Sex Magik isn’t on it.”
Nope.
I was excited to revisit this album, because though it came out in 1991, two years before I started college, I remember it being huge in the Boston University dorms. I heard it...
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IKEA, THIS IS CREEPY
kellyoxford:
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I like Pig's Eye
“Hipsters would like St. Paul more if it was still called Pig’s Eye, no?” tweets Jason Zabel. Apparently so. After reading Jason’s tweet, I thought: I feel like I often mention “Pig’s Eye” Parrant and/or use “Pig’s Eye” as a synonym for St. Paul. Do I ever, says Google.
SHERLOCK HOLMES ON THE PROWL IN PIG’S EYE (headline, 6/11/08)
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