Dear Prudence

Sometimes I tend to forget about the brilliance of the Beatles. The band's songs are everywhere and have been so deeply ingrained into pop music, that it's easy to overlook the simple beauty of most of their work. I caught this cover on the radio the other day and it made me re-think about their excellence. Siouxsie definitely adds a few more layers onto this song, it's a bit noisier, which fits the era. Cool stuff.

Street Art is Fun

One thing that I always enjoyed while my time in Europe was the omnipresent street performers. There just seems to be a culture that supports that sort of thing over there, while in the States, I've seen it much less often. I wish I could have checked this guy out in DC, though. Very witty, I must say.

[SOS!]

Was going to write this, but found it was already written

Feel free to read this take on Mullholland Drive. Several of these thoughts came to my mind this weekend when I was watching Contempt. The analogy probably deserves a bit more explication, but I'm very lazy...

[link]

Re: Economy

Hey, you wanted 1977, you wanted revolution, well you got it. Let's listen to punk rock.



Public Image!!!! Peep this...





Chinese Rock!!!



Hell of apocalyptic!!!





Artists Only!!!



Johnny Thunders x2!!!





Big Finish!!! Get set for anarchy - for real this time!!!

VU: Quine Tapes

Each VU album is radically different from the others. So, it's weird to listen to their songs stripped down to their basic skeleton and performed in a single straightforward style, as on The Quine Tapes. Nearly every song is imbued with the same heart-rending melancholy of "After Hours." (With the exception of the unable-to-be-suppressed "White Light/White Heat.") While you should have listened to this one already, if you're a musical idiot like me, check it out for different (and often much longer) spins on some of your favorite songs. (Some of your favorite songs are VU songs, aren't they?) Also, it's kind of awesomely excessive to have three versions of "Sister Ray" on one album. (Now, I have eight different versions total. Score.)

Elliott Smith

Art that comes up when I search "Remain In Light" but unrelated to Talking Heads

Not this one.






I hate xkcd







See you at Chamonix.

I Only Watch TV on Sundays

Venture Brothers

The best and most conventional show on Adult Swim these days has animation and jokes so stellar that everyone loves it. But, like all Adult Swim shows, full enjoyment presupposes comprehension of its intricate intertextuality.

Metalocalypse

The "brutal" facade belies the true theme of bourgeois boredom. A bunch of guys sitting around getting everything they want, hating each other and not doing anything about it sounds like internet culture to me. The animation isn't that great, but some of the design was clearly well thought out and visually stunning.

Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job!
I'll admit that though I'm a public access maven, I didn't really get this show for a long, long time. The most recent season might have been substantially better than prior ones, but regardless, it resonated with me. Pure absurdism and hysteria without dissolving meaninglessness.

Robot Chicken
Still viciously hit or miss but often enough worth the ten minute run time. Other shows are tangentially dependent on parody, but God help you if you haven't seen Robot Chicken's source material.

Mad Men

Though Mad Men might be a pure misogyinst fantasy - see Don Draper's perfect housewife, multiple mistresses, drinking habits - there's a clear pathos lying not too many layers underneath. Mad Men is really about the construction and deconstruction of illusions. The impeccable set design and lighting covers up for a few dull episodes here and there.

The Hills
The persistently vacuous and numbing crown jewel of MTV is falling apart into four or five separate storylines. Intentional or not, the show awesomely exhibits the station's blank values in fast-forward, ridden with drama but emotion free.

Feasting on Waves
Alton Brown is great... but I'm unsure what the seaborne sequel to Feasting on Asphalt has to offer over the other two million shows of its type except better production.

Entourage
The ultimate misogynist fantasy (moreso than Mad Men because of its immediacy) has returned for another season. It's hard to justify watching this one except for the fact that it's so entertaining.

I Love Money
VH1 vets getting their PhD in advanced reality strategy studies.

Pretty much sums it up

[AV Club/Stewart]

A trip back to middle school

Inspired by the Olympics Commercials

This was about a year before he was shot and well into his drug addictions. Incredible rendition.