Archive of September 2008
I just can’t believe that Blair would do something so cruel.
— Harold Waldorf, Blair’s father - Gossip Girl s01e11 “Roman Holiday”
28 September 2008 - 18:01 | Tags: notagsI don’t remember being born, but now I know I regret it.
The difference between Lucille Bluth and Tabitha is that Lucille likes vodka and Tabitha likes scotch.
— Jessica Walter on the difference between her characters on Arrested Development and 90210.
As of 2003, the rhetoric of the enterprise is fucked. 95 percent of political commentary, whether spoken or written, is now polluted by the very politics it’s supposed to be about. Meaning it’s become totally ideological and reductive: The writer/speaker has certain political convictions or affiliations, and proceeds to filter all reality and spin all assertion according to those convictions and loyalties. Everybody’s pissed off and exasperated and impervious to argument from any other side. Opposing viewpoints are not just incorrect but contemptible, corrupt, evil.
…
It’s all become like Zinn and Chomsky but without the immense bodies of hard data these older guys use to back up their screeds. There’s no more complex, messy, community-wide argument (or “dialogue”); political discourse is now a formulaic matter of preaching to one’s own choir and demonizing the opposition. Everything’s relentlessly black-and-whitened. Since the truth is way, way more gray and complicated than any one ideology can capture, the whole thing seems to me not just stupid but stupefying. Watching O’Reilly v. Franken is watching bloodsport. How can any of this possibly help me, the average citizen, deliberate about whom to choose to decide my country’s macroeconomic policy, or how even to conceive for myself what that policy’s outlines should be, or how to minimize the chances of North Korea nuking the DMZ and pulling us into a ghastly foreign war, or how to balance domestic security concerns with civil liberties? Questions like these are all massively complicated, and much of the complication is not sexy, and well over 90 percent of political commentary now simply abets the uncomplicatedly sexy delusion that one side is Right and Just and the other Wrong and Dangerous. Which is of course a pleasant delusion, in a way—as is the belief that every last person you’re in conflict with is an asshole—but it’s childish, and totally unconducive to hard thought, give and take, compromise, or the ability of grown-ups to function as any kind of community.
— David Foster Wallace in his 2003 interview with The Believer magazine. I think this is why I prefer to get political commentary from comedy television, because they show you both sides are ridiculous rather than one side being evil. I don’t want to know politics is evil, any more than I already do. DFW’s death is saddening, but it has made me get off my slack butt and read his work, rather than leaving it in the “someday” pile.
I cannot believe my eyes
How the world’s filled with filth and lies
But it’s plain to see
Evil inside of me is on the rise
— My Eyes from Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog
And the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums [UPDATE: the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums]
— Great DJ by The Ting Tings. I severely underestimated the number of drums.
It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out.
— David Foster Wallace in his 2002 commencement speech to Kenyon University. Wallace committed suicide on Friday.
12 September 2008 - 08:21 | Tags: musicWhen I go out with my core group of friends, we unintentionally look like a popular indie band.
12 September 2008 - 05:19 | Tags: relationships, tetrisI don’t ever let him win at Tetris. It’s nothing malicious, I promise - I’m just the best Tetris player ever. I can’t help it. Getting upset with me for winning at Tetris is like getting mad at Yao Ming for being really tall.
And he’ll never beat me at Tetris because the only person who could beat me at tetris is a clone of myself. And even then it’s iffy.
Grow up and accept your inferiority. I accept it. And I love you anyway.
Chairlift - Bruises on iPod nano ad
Chairlift’s song Bruises (link to Australian iTunes store) is featured on the new iPod nano TV ad. The lyrics include:
“I tried to do handstands for you. Every time I fell on you. Every time I fell for you I’m permanently black and blue, permanently blue for you.”
The song currently (10th Sept 00:23 UTC) has 2343 plays and 592 listeners on last.fm.
I’ll track the increase here.
UPDATE (10th Sept 19:00 UTC): 2418 plays - 604 listeners. I’m not sure when they aggregate their stats.
UPDATE (11th Sept 19:20 UTC): 2895 plays - 723 listeners.
UPDATE (13th Sept 19:30 UTC): 4000 plays - 926 listeners.
UPDATE (15th Sept 19:30 UTC): 6280 plays - 1209 listeners.
UPDATE (27th Sept 21:00 UTC): 26259 plays - 3868 listeners.
Weirdly, the Australian iTunes store lists the release date as 11 November 2008 but is selling it (from the future!).
The physical CD will be available at Amazon on September 30, 2008. They are already selling the digital version.
The album is currently number 1032 in MP3 Albums on the Amazon charts. The song is number 47369.
UPDATE (10th Sept 09:00 UTC): Album is number 648 - Song is number 1707, a rise of more than 45000 places in 9 hours.
UPDATE (10th Sept 11:00 UTC): Album at 368 - Song at 882.
UPDATE (10th Sept 13:30 UTC): Album at 391 - Song at 934.
UPDATE (10th Sept 15:45 UTC): Album at 230 - Song at 1103.
UPDATE (10th Sept 18:45 UTC): Album at 265 - Song at 848.
UPDATE (10th Sept 20:00 UTC): Album at 318 - Song at 690. I wonder if the time of day says anything about the type of people who buy albums vs single songs?
UPDATE (10th Sept 22:30 UTC): Album at 226 - Song at 914.
UPDATE (11th Sept 19:20 UTC): Album at 380 - Song at 792. I wonder if this is the end of the initial bump and we’ll see another once the TV spot starts in force.
UPDATE (13th Sept 19:30 UTC): Album at 676 - Song at 1491.
UPDATE (15th Sept 19:30 UTC): Album at 158 - Song at 128.
UPDATE (16th Sept 18:30 UTC): Album at 94 - Song at 107.
I found a few sites linking to the song. Remember kids, “Don’t steal music!”
9 September 2008 - 20:26 | Tags: music, ipod, chairlift