All UK tabloid pieces about pop acts are deeply dubious, but: OH NOEZ. The classic lineup is fracturing. Here comes either their difficult, experimental phase, or their shrill, cynical “the magic is gone” phase.
(Or they will put out another album of exactly the same quality and none of us will ever notice. BUT THAT’S NOT AS MUCH FUN TO BLOG ABOUT.)
I’m flat broke and I shouldn’t be buying clothes for a lot of reasons, but I couldn’t let this one go unpurchased.
… there’s a new season of Project Runway starting on Thursday, and the only reason I know about it is because I placed my cursor wrong and accidentally clicked to enable Flash on a blocked ad on Vulture.
It seems like somebody isn’t doing their job right if I’m only just now hearing about this.
(Of course that “somebody” is probably Project Runway itself, which seems to be in a slow death spiral, but maybe this season will surprise me?)
Here’s an example. Back in 1968, Congress passed the Truth in Lending Act. Among other things, it made credit card companies liable for charges on stolen credit cards over $50. In a purely economic sense, there’s really no excuse for this. Why should a card company be responsible for your carelessness? If you’re dumb enough to let someone steal your card and run up thousands of dollars in charges, it ought to be your responsibility. It’s ridiculous to make a bank — and by extension, its customers — subsidize the losses of individuals who can’t take care of their own finances.
Today, this argument would almost certainly carry the day. Even most liberals wouldn’t fight it. It’s as if we’ve been brainwashed against arguing that we should do something purely because it represents the way we think people deserve to be treated. We need graphs and charts and dueling models of economic distribution instead.
” —There are pros and cons to either side of this formulation, but I think it’s a very important thing to think about every once in a while with regard to modern political culture.
If I was to say I’d just spent half an hour pairing contemporary musicians with Pet Shop Boys songs to compose possibly the corniest tribute-album tracklisting ever, that would be the kind of nerdy, interesting-only-to-me nonsense that I really shouldn’t post publicly for fear of worsening my already horribly dorky and socially maladroit image, right?
Television - Woofs and Meows Have It (at Least on Screens) - NYTimes.com
As soon as I saw this article, I started ranting to my coworker (a former Times employee) “The New York fucking Times did a piece on the fact that THERE ARE DOGS AND CATS ON TEEVEE,” but this is admittedly a great factoid.
Clips from the Tron: Legacy soundtrack. I am really hoping that they are nominated for Best Original Score at the Academy Awards, and that they show up in the robot helmets, and that they win and then either
New Poptimist column! This one might be familiar to assiduous readers of this Tumblr as it uses a post last week (about “real” pop fans) as a springboard to explore ideas of the generic, and whether that can ever be a positive term.
I hope you like it!
There’s a section near the end of this piece that I was just DYING to quote, but it seemed like giving the end of the movie away in the trailer. Great stuff.
Guillermo del Toro directing The Haunted Mansion - UGO.com
Hahahahaha I will definitely go see this.
Never would I have imagined that nearly fifty years after Selma and two years after the United States sent its first black president to the White House we’d be where we are today, dealing with a predominant national storyline revolving around race, around racism and supposed “reverse racism”, and around what we should really just cut to the chase and start calling by what it really is: racism’s Second Great Awakening.
You should go read Matt talk about racism.
This is almost exactly the post that I wanted to write about this whole affair yesterday, but I was just too angry.
Originally recorded in 2003 by Klas Ahlund’s ex-wide, Paola Bruna. Streaming at that link. Interesting! (Thanks, Andrew)
Spencer Takes “Action” with Jimmy Olsen - Comic Book Resources
Since I share an office with the editor on this, I can confirm that this (like the Lex Luthor lead already running in the front of Action) is gonna be a lot of fun. Action Comics #893, on sale September 29th.
