Tragically Hipster * Los Angeles

A SITE LIKE ITS NAME

2010-12-23T11:15:00.000-08:00

Well it's been an extended sabbatical here between posts, but why not throw in a few words here to help along the yuletide/insert-name-of-season-holiday-and/or-tradition-here spirit? Which is to say I don't really have a better place to post this, and since I've been doing absurd amounts of research on this subject lately I felt like I might as well take advantage of our little site's Tragical Hipness to launch this helpful tidbit out into the ether:

Finding the proper lens to purchase for your DSLR camera is, to put it bluntly, a bitch. For those of us mere mortals who do not spend every waking moment reading photography magazines and blogs and who just want to know what purchasing options are available for our all-too-meager price range, it's always a painful crapshoot cross-referencing Amazon searches and googling online reviews to try and pick out the salient details. You'd think the internet, that magical reference book open to us all, would have long ago come to some simple solution for this issue, but alas your expectation have, until now, would've been deucedly confounded.

Enter Lens Hero, which does what the internet is supposed to do, and collates all the relevant information you need (for purchasing lenses) into one site with a nice clean interface. Put in a camera make and model, a price range, and your intended use, and it shoots out a comprehensive list of lenses available, with quick at-a-glance tech info and even the occasional one-sentence review tacked right on. If you don't deal with lens-purchase situations on a regular basis, that probably doesn't seem like a big deal. For those of us who do, though, it's a damned lifesaver.

Well done, internet. Well. Done.

Those who will find this post of use should proceed forthwith to the LensHero.com website, located here: LensHero.com.

Those who have not the slightest hint of interest in such things have, no doubt, stopped reading long ago.

Steven Hawking lecture at USC...

2009-03-18T13:53:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine attended the recent Steven Hawking lecture at USC on March 10th. She sent me this video posted on YouTube summarizing the event. It was pretty awesome, but you know... with Hawking you have to be patient because of his speaking aparatus... so bear with it... it's worth it!

Christian Bale Top 10 List...

2009-02-10T00:06:00.000-08:00

In case you've been living in a cave for the past 7 days...
Here's a quick recap of all the REALLY important stuff that you might have missed...

Christian Bale, like, totally freaked out and he was, like, totally cursing out this guy, like, on the set of Terminator 4 and now it's, like, totally all over the internet and, like, people have been totally making fun of it all week and it's, like, totally funny now!

There now you're caught up.

It was a pretty jacked up rant, and so it is certainly understanding that it should gain significant attention, but seriously... how much can we really milk this event for comedic content??

Well... it turns out... the mine runs pretty deep!

In just under a week Christian Bale has inspired countless re-enactments, mash-ups with other celebrity rants, re-imaginings involving donuts and Elmo, homage videos by other actors, cable TV comedy skits, network TV comedy skits, a new dance club hit, and he's been Rick-rolled!

In fact... Sony Pictures is even trying to market on this event by running Google search ads AND YouTube search ads saying "Christian Bale... gets all 'Fired Up'!" - but these links just take you to ads for "Fired Up" which is a movie about High School boys trying to bed cheerleaders (I'm not sure I get the Christian Bale connection ... You'd think they'd be driving traffic to something for T4)?!?

Since there is such a plethora of material now available on the subject of Christian Bale's angry tirade, I figured I'd help you out by providing a resource for easily locating the important items.

Here's my Top 10 list:

#10
Maybe this is how it looked on the set?! - Probably not, but its fun to watch someone lipsynch to the audio standing in an industrial park and carrying a massive weapon Terminator style. Not too creative though...

#9
What if he just had a really nasty hankerin' for some donuts?!

#8
Mash-up with Bale and Lilly Tomlin going toe-to-toe - definitely interesting... this one sounds like it just might have happened... though I think they both might've forgotten exactly what it is they're arguing about the dialogue gets kinda circular.

#7
The movie studio responds! - sort of...

#6
Christian Bale berates "David After Dentist" - A quality mash-up! Two internet phenoms in one!

#5
Christian Bale's "sister" freaks out on her dogs - funny stuff!

#4
Now wait... I'm confused... Why is Batman yelling at Elmo while being chased by a midget?? - Oh yeah... because it's REALLY FUNNY!!

#3
Killer dance re-mix by RuPaul's producer RevoLucian - with bonus points for political relevance; the track is titled "Bale Out"!

#2
The Colbert Report goes all Christian Bale on guest Steve Martin

#1
What happens when Christian Bale becomes unemployed - WOW! If you've ever been to Hollywood & Highland and seen the "movie characters" that pose for photos on the street... YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS!! BRILLIANT!!

Also ran:

- Michael Cera gets props for his pop culture savvy, but he's just too nice to be believable in this send-up

- "YouTube News" interviews the Bale and the Governator about T4 - This one almost made the list, but I could only take so much of the annoying hosts making faces at the camera... so close.

- Mash-up with Bale and Bill O'Riley going at it - good thought, but not real convincing... ho, hum... yawn...

- Another reenactment/reinterpretation - production quality stinks, but the DP in this is entertaining; he just can't let go of his crappy little light.

Why...
- Christian Bale gets Rick-rolled - Why??... Who started this? Why does anyone continue it? It's stupid. It's not even funny. Give it up. Let it die. Just let it die. Please...

p.s. - For reference... This is the original audio track of Bale's tirade.

Super Bowl + porn = ??

2009-02-02T23:48:00.000-08:00

I'm not dead yet... but you wouldn't know it from reading my blogs...

Of recent we have been more simply "tragic" than "tragically hipster" in our collective failure to bring you the latest and greatest from the city of angels.

While I can't promise a full fledged renewal, I do feel the need to share one crazy story about the Super Bowl...

Aparently cable viewers in Tuscon got a happy ending with their Super Bowl; in the final minutes of the game, the broadcast was interrupted by 30 seconds of PORN!

All I gotta say is...
WOW! Somebody is so totally fired!
And it was probably totally worth it!

Because any prank that violates the sacred broadcast space of the Super Bowl is awesome in my book!

You can read more about it here.
And if you're really curious you can watch some of it on YouTube.

Obama Riding a Unicorn

2008-12-30T17:15:00.000-08:00

http://chrisbishop.com/obama/

Giant Robot 2 - Post-It Show 3

2008-12-23T11:58:00.000-08:00

Until January 14 of '09, the Giant Robot 2 store in L.A. will be presenting Post-It Show 3, an exhibit of Post-It art by more than 95 artists, including some of my personal favorites, such as Gary Baseman, Allison Cole, Jill Bliss, Nikki McClure, Jeffrey Brown, and many others. With more than 2,000 works and some starting at only $20, it's possible to score a cool piece.

Post-It Show 3 at GR2

December 13, 2008 - January 14, 2009

2062 Sawtelle Boulevard

Los Angeles, CA 90025

(310) 445-9276

http://www.gr2.net/

http://www.giantrobot.com/blogs/transmissions/2008/12/post-it-3.html

Laugh riot - Hilarious Web Surfing

2008-12-19T08:40:00.000-08:00

It's the Friday before Christmas.
If you're at work, you can't be doing very much.
Even if you've got a lot to do before leaving town,
your brain is probably keeping you from concentrating on much more than
"I wonder if they're gonna bring lunch in for us today."

Most likely you'll be doing quite a bit of web surfing today.
Here's three hilarious websites to keep you entertained during the 4:00 hour
when things start to feel really hard.

#1: The Douchebag's Guide to Life
This is a new blog launched by comedian Ben Johnson from Chicago, Illinois.
In it he promises to give advice on all sorts of life's problems.
His first entry, "Guide to Waking up to Someone Who's Currently Pissing in their Sleep," offers gems like
"To start with, insensitivity is a bad reaction" and
"That pee is at least partially your pee. Maybe not physically, but ethically."

#2: Jokes.com
This is Comedy Central's attempt to centralize every comedian in history into a one-stop-shop. Overall, the site is pretty good. What it lacks in older material by people like Bill Cosby and Shelley Berman it makes up for with extensive coverage on everyone who's ever done a Comedy Central 1/2 hour special. Hopefully the site will continue to grow its archives in years to come. Now in its infancy, the site is still a great place to spend some time with bios on comedians, lots of jokes, and (for those of us who can sneak Earbuds to work) videos.

#3: Cakewrecks
This blog is simply awesome. Displaying and commenting on some of the world's biggest "whoopsies" in the bakery field.

Two of my favorites:

"At first I thought the decorator was just being clever, but then I noticed the "Somewheres". Yeah. Well, there went that theory."

"How you know your impending wedding is merely an excuse for your co-workers to eat cake"

Laugh Riot - Shelley Berman

2008-12-12T18:03:00.000-08:00

I recently had the opportunity to meet and work briefly with a comedic hero of mine,
Shelley Berman.

Mr. Berman is one of the original Compass Players, a performance group that was the first of its kind to use improv, not as an acting or writing tool but as a form of entertainment. They laid the foundation for all improvisation that came after from Second City and Saturday Night Live to Curb Your Enthusiasm and every Christopher Guest film ever made.

A studio in Chicago is doing a documentary on The Compass Players entitled "Compass: The Birth of Improvisational Theatre."

Mr. Berman is still working as an actor into his golden years on shows Curb Your Enthusiasm and Pushing Daisies.

Please enjoy some of his stand up.

"Hold On"

F#$!

2008-12-12T15:58:00.000-08:00

After stumbling half-awake into the Green Room at the theatre company I work for to toast some Pop-Tarts this morning, I noticed this little gem of a note, written by an anonymous passive-aggressor:

Transcription: "Stop Putting half opened packs of coffee in this tray - it's for sugar you F#$ !"

I promptly submitted it to Passive Aggressive Notes. Thanks, for the giggles, fellow co-worker!

Disney's "High School Musical" Concert Ukulele

2008-12-09T11:48:00.000-08:00

What?!

Our most popular posts

2008-12-05T11:14:00.000-08:00

Here are Tragically Hipster's most popular posts since it's inception:

1. Shana Lutker interview - 351 views
2. Tao Lin Offers a Cure to Existential Despair Through Strategic Investment Opportunities - 103 views
3. Flight of the Conchords at Largo - 99 views
4. Ariel Pink interview - 83 views
5. Rau Art Review of Philip Lorca DiCorcia at LACMA - 48 views

Just because they're the most popular doesn't make them the best, Brenda, but they may be worth a look.

Prop 8... The Musical?!?!

2008-12-04T20:11:00.001-08:00

No matter what you think about Prop 8, you have to admit that this is funny as hell! (p.s. - I for one wish we'd been voting to eliminate all state administration of "marriage", but we'll save that post for another time)

In the mean time:

Prop 8: The Musical!

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Mmm...Hamm...

2008-12-04T15:33:00.000-08:00

“If it feels like a slice of ham, don’t wipe your ass with it.” – Jon Hamm’s John Ham

Thanks, SNL!

Hello Kitty Hell

2008-12-03T10:54:00.000-08:00

As a Hello Kitty fan, I am at once delighted and horrified by my own addiction. That's why I so very much enjoy Hello Kitty Hell - one man's frightening journey into the bottomless pit that is his wife's HK fixation. Behold his future:

Prick Up Your Ears 2008

2008-11-29T22:23:00.000-08:00

A good friend of mine (with impeccable taste) generally sends out an annual "best albums of the year" list via email to a select group of friends... This year he has posted it on a friend's blog for easy sharing.

Click the photo to read his comments on the top 10, and several honorable mentions.

Go check it out and discuss the merits and pitfalls of his list (or come up with you own)!

All thanks to Greg Stump... who deserves all glory (and ridicule) for the list.

"Barking at the Moon"

2008-11-24T17:15:00.001-08:00

On Saturday I saw the new Disney computer-animated movie Bolt with The Blogfather and his 12-year-old brother. For a family pic I really enjoyed it (and laughed my ass off at the quixotic, somewhat insane hamster), but I was surprised to hear what sounded like a Jenny Lewis song playing under a montage about halfway through the movie. The Blogfather thought it might be Jewel, but I wasn't convinced. Sure enough, after checking the credits at the end I was able to confirm that it was Jenny. (After constantly playing "Under the Blacklight" all spring and summer, her beautiful little trill is ingrained in my brain.) The track is called "Barking at the Moon" and it's lovely, as her music tends to be. Kudos to the Disney people who asked her to perform on the soundtrack - an unexpectedly cool choice.

"The Relevance Was Alaska's"

2008-11-19T11:52:00.000-08:00

The Relevance of Africa
Sarah Palin

And the relevance to me
With that issue,
As we spoke
About Africa and some
Of the countries
There that were
Kind of the people succumbing
To the dictators
And the corruption
Of some collapsed governments
On the
Continent,
The relevance
Was Alaska’s.

"Not since Walt Whitman published Leaves of Grass has there been such an electrifying debut. And she is yet to publish a collection. This is an astonishing poetic insurgency. The building momentum will soon be unstoppable."

LINK:
Sarah Palin for Poet Laureate

Laugh Riot - Jokes

2008-11-17T18:43:00.000-08:00

Sometimes the best way to start a laugh riot is by simply telling some good, old fashioned jokes.
Of course, what's funny and what's not is totally *subjective.
* "Subjective"- drinking alcohol makes everything funnier.

"Hello, is this thing on?"....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Why does a chicken coup have 2 doors?

Because if it had 4, it'd be a chicken sedan.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What do you call an Italian with a rubber toe?

ROBERTO!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Did you hear the joke about the roof?

Never mind it's over your head.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Boom!
Thank you!
Good Night America!"
Tip your waitress.

HOME ROOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-11-17T13:46:00.000-08:00

Funky Forest: First Contact on DVD

Crop circles are awesome!

2008-11-14T02:24:00.000-08:00

So apparently this one is old news, but I just found out about it...

Let me start by saying that crop circles are AWESOME!

If you believe in aliens... AWESOME.
or if you enjoy the exploits of clever pranksters... AWESOME.
If you're into geometric abstract art... AWESOME.
If you're a geek at heart... AWESOME.
If you love puzzles ... AWESOME.
If you enjoy picturesque landscapes... AWESOME.
If you're an Anglo-phile... AWESOME.
Everything about them is AWESOME!

So...
Now that we have established that you like crop circles...
(unless you are a prudish, British hating, nature killing, art-phobe, lunk head)

Check this out...

"Yeah, Yeah... Okay... So what... It's just a crop circle..."

Maybe...
But this is a crop circle that abstractly depicts the first 10 digits of pi!
A crop circle that says - "3.141592654..."

Don't believe me? Check this out.

It even includes a mini crop circle decimal point!

I think the middle school mathlete in me just wet himself with glee...

You can read more here.

The Japanese: Imaginations Still as Cute/Deeply Disturbing as Ever

2008-11-13T12:27:00.000-08:00

Petition signatures to put the nation of Japan under a plexiglass lid so as to safely observe its culture will now be accepted:

Laugh Riot - Banksy

2008-11-11T20:35:00.000-08:00

I'm a late comer to the art of Banksy,
an artist in Europe who's medium is spray paint
and who's canvas is the city.

He is a man who paints a sense of humor where there forgot to be one.

Some of my favorites:

But please visit his website yourself.

BANKSY

He's got tons more art there.

Haunting and Lovely

2008-11-06T15:46:00.001-08:00

Official Site
Let the Right One In Director Slams Remake

Educated Optimism and the Collective

2008-11-05T18:27:00.000-08:00

Today I wore my “Obama ‘08” button, even though it’s too late to campaign for Barack or stir a conversation with an undecided voter. The button, if it ever had any impact on the people around me, is now rendered useless. Last night, Barack Obama was named the new President-Elect of the United States of America.

As an individual, my vote did not affect the outcome of the election. Presidential elections will never come down to one vote as long as the Electoral College remains firmly in place. But as a member of a large group of citizens who mobilized and turned out in droves to cast their votes for Obama, I am one of many people who chose to see themselves as a collective rather than individuals. I am one of many who stepped into the voting booth or mailed their ballot in the hopes that they could help to turn the tide. One vote doesn’t mean much, but if so many Obama supporters hadn’t exercised their right to vote, the election would have had entirely different results.

I believe it was this camaraderie, this awareness of the danger of apathy and the significance of standing up for what you believe in, that led people into the streets to celebrate Obama’s victory in Oakland, Seattle, Chicago, Washington D.C., and New York City. There were celebratory gatherings in England, Kenya, Costa Rica, China and many other nations around the world. And individuals and families across the nation and overseas sat joyfully in their homes as Obama gave his televised victory speech – a speech that weighed heavily with the difficult tasks ahead of him, a speech that called on Americans to think of the greater good and to serve their communities, a speech that recalled the painful moments of our history and painted a cleaner, brighter future, a speech that brought many in the diverse crowd in Chicago to tears.

The election of Obama has renewed my belief that our individual actions matter. We are each one small piece of a vast union and each of us must be willing to take responsibility for his or her choices, whether we disconnect from what lies outside our comfort zones, or whether we jump into the fray and try to make positive changes wherever we view a need. Young voters and African-American voters turned out in record numbers, but they alone did not create the wave of support that turned key states from red to blue. Individuals all over the nation, many who had not voted in previous elections, understood the importance of their individual votes. Because so many individuals didn’t allow themselves to become apathetic, they were able to form a collective that brought about a significant milestone in our nation’s history.

My Obama vote had little to do with race, gender, age or any other physical trait. Quite simply, Obama demonstrated to me and many others through his voting record and his many speeches, appearances, and writings that he has compassion for people in need, for working-class and middle-class singles and families, for immigrants, for people who experience discrimination, and for segments of the population that have been ignored for the past 8 years. He always appeared poised, thoughtful, logical and ready to lead. He admitted his imperfections and the areas in which he lacked specific knowledge, but he never seemed weak or unable to handle new information. Listening to Obama speak, for once I didn’t feel like I was being swindled or that someone was attempting to sell me a leader who was the lesser of two evils. I felt inspiration, hope and genuine excitement about the election, and I realized how great a privilege it really was to be able to vote for someone I believed in.

For those who were so busy booing Obama that you failed to hear his speech last night or turned off the T.V. before he finished, you missed an opportunity to be a part of something big, something bigger than yourselves, your immediate surroundings and you political party. Just as John McCain gave a gracious, humble concession speech, Obama spoke with equal grace and humility. If you missed his speech because you were angry about McCain’s loss, you missed the opportunity to witness a new sense of hope and responsibility in America, a fresh perspective that is not based on fear, but on educated optimism. You missed an opportunity to witness millions of Americans all over the country coming together in the streets to celebrate and revel in the power of democracy.

And now the work begins. Obama will be tested. His administration will be tested. The American people will be tested. We don’t know what crises we will face in the next four years or what actions we will have to take to overcome them. We don’t know who will rise to the occasion and who will fall. We must remain cautious with our government and learn to recognize when our leaders are taking steps toward a healthier and more unified nation, or when they are acting out of fear, greed or self-interest. The collective truly has the power to make a positive impact on the world stage, and thus each one of us as individuals, and we must remember this fact before cynicism rears its head once again.

With the election of Barack Obama I believe, for the first time in my life, that the government will be taking steps toward truly protecting and supporting the American people – male or female, poor or wealthy, young or old, healthy or sick, Republican or Democrat. The people of my country are inspiring me to become a better person. For the first time since childhood, I almost believe in the American Dream.

Michael Crichton Has Departed to the Great Amusement Park in the Sky

2008-11-05T11:56:00.000-08:00

...hopefully, he will find it devoid of malfunctioning robots, genetically-cloned oversized lizards, talking apes, or pretty much anything else that has ever been featured as a plot device in one of his novels.

If you're looking for a fitting way to pay the man tribute, may we recommend reading -- you know, actually reading, rather than watching the movie version -- Jurassic Park? It doesn't have any of the cool CGI or the gosh-isn't-this-neat John Williams score, but it is a markedly better story, and one of the most intense reads you're likely to stumble across for a good long while.

LINK: RIP Michael Crichton (A.V. Club News Bulletin)

Back to our regularly inconsequential programming: featuring Captain Fantastic Faster Than Superman Spiderman Batman Wolverine Hulk And The Flash...

2008-11-05T11:29:00.000-08:00

Via Telegraph

"A Return to Traditional Values"

2008-11-05T09:46:00.000-08:00

Dead Set
Election night has come and gone, and surely no matter which side of the political fence you reside upon, some things went your way while others did not. But lost in the shuffle of celebrations and recriminations has been perhaps the greatest issue of them all, elucidated in yesterday's Guardian U.K. with heartbreaking clarity by writer, actor, and impassioned advocate for the undead, Simon Pegg:

ZOMBIES DON'T RUN!

I know it is absurd to debate the rules of a reality that does not exist, but this genuinely irks me. You cannot kill a vampire with an MDF stake; werewolves can't fly; zombies do not run. It's a misconception, a bastardisation that diminishes a classic movie monster. The best phantasmagoria uses reality to render the inconceivable conceivable. The speedy zombie seems implausible to me, even within the fantastic realm it inhabits. A biological agent, I'll buy. Some sort of super-virus? Sure, why not. But death? Death is a disability, not a superpower. It's hard to run with a cold, let alone the most debilitating malady of them all.

More significantly, the fast zombie is bereft of poetic subtlety. As monsters from the id, zombies win out over vampires and werewolves when it comes to the title of Most Potent Metaphorical Monster. Where their pointy-toothed cousins are all about sex and bestial savagery, the zombie trumps all by personifying our deepest fear: death. Zombies are our destiny writ large. Slow and steady in their approach, weak, clumsy, often absurd, the zombie relentlessly closes in, unstoppable, intractable.

However (and herein lies the sublime artfulness of the slow zombie), their ineptitude actually makes them avoidable, at least for a while. If you're careful, if you keep your wits about you, you can stave them off, even outstrip them - much as we strive to outstrip death. Drink less, cut out red meat, exercise, practice safe sex; these are our shotguns, our cricket bats, our farmhouses, our shopping malls. However, none of these things fully insulates us from the creeping dread that something so witless, so elemental may yet catch us unawares - the drunk driver, the cancer sleeping in the double helix, the legless ghoul dragging itself through the darkness towards our ankles.

For more of Pegg's heartfelt review of a television miniseries unlikely to ever see the light of day on this side of the pond, we suggest you click here.

Strange Days

2008-11-03T15:44:00.000-08:00

There are (1) people who like politics. There are (2) people who like the stock market. There are (3) people who like the arts. There are (4) people who just wanna have fun. Maybe some others.

Usually those first two groups have crossover, and the last two as well, but it's pretty rare to find a 1-3 pairing or 2-4, etc.

Certainly my peers, while responsible voters, were not obsessed with the Bush-Gore election. Certainly my peers could not explain the stock market's bizarre tics.

But here we find ourselves, at a time when due to a conflagration of post 9-11 searching, previous generations' money borrowing, 24-hour news saturation, a 2-year campaign trail, A Series of Inconvenient Truths and spam that references the credit crisis, being interested in the arts or having fun with your friends feels fey/juvenile/wasteful/pointless.

Right after 9-11, of course, a number of comedians took a couple weeks off, because even they couldn't figure out how comedy mattered any more.

And it's truly bizarre to see KCAL reporting on Damien Hirst's "For the Love of God" sandwiched between bankruptcy stories.

This is actually a familiar feeling: in younger days, many many people told us that we needed to put down the guitar, and that it was wrong to worry about whether you liked your clothes when there were those who had none. And then the first few of our generation edging into adulthood "opted out," in one way or another.

Philosophically, I believe culture is precious. I don't think there is any sense in sending Tim Hawkinson and Joanna Newsom off to die in a war. I don't think Tracy Morgan should be laying low while the country's in a serious mood. But these days I feel a bigger and bigger disconnect between what I think about and what I think I should think about.

That last sentence could be misleading - of course I care about the election and the economy. Many people I love deeply will have their lives irretrievably altered if things "get worse." But I voted early and voted my conscience: why can't I enjoy my book tonight? Why do I feel like I have to watch the news to see what's happening with the election?

It's certainly not my hobby. I am not a (1). I get so confused and frustrated watching the news that I have a no-TV news rule. But now I feel like I have to break it, like not watching could have some disastrous consequences.

Last Thursday, a window opened up. I was flushed with creative energy, and ready to assign myself a 5-a-week regimen of exercises from Miranda July's "Learning to Love You More." Now, I'm back to where I was Wednesday, meaning I couldn't even think of that. I literally feel that the threat of terrorist attack, war, or economic meltdown is so nearby, making my creative impulses feel meaningless. Why? Is the threat real? For how long?

In July, Adbusters ran a cover feature about "Hipsters", calling them (us?) the dead end of civilization. It was a ridiculous those-darn-kids article suggesting Adbusters may be out of ideas, but it's general idea was disturbing: kids who go to concerts are inferior to those who volunteer.

Is this true? If so, where does it stop? After work and sleep, I have about 6 hours every day. Should I be maximizing those 6 hours for their social impact? And how do I know what's more important: Leaving aside my passions, and just going with political issues, is it more important who wins the US presidency or how soon we (the world?) can stop the genocide in Darfur? Could I impact homelesness more by writing about it, or by handing out sandwiches? Is it an issue of balance? Can I justify spending $20 on Synecdoche, New York instead of socking it away to make up for my plummeting 401(k) (and the non-existent ones of artist friends I would hope to be able to help as we got older)?

Or is it true, against all my better instincts, that the best way to care is to create Rock For Change and Raves For Breast Cancer?

I feel like my list of concerns is becoming less and less my own. Stephen Covey ("The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People," yes, I've read it) talks/writes about our "circle of concern" and "circle of influence" and how many of us waste energy worrying about concerns and not wielding influence. But when surrounded by constant messages of threat to life and well being (for me and loved ones), how do I find joy in making a nice dinner "baked with love" for Mrs. Blogfather? How do I care about what a young artist is saying about the history of conceptualism? Why is my joy being taken from me? Are things really this bad, or am I letting the worst logicians' arguments strangle my brain?

What happens next?

MIXTAPE MONDAYS: Hymns to the Electoral College

2008-11-03T13:42:00.000-08:00

1) "This Lands is Your Land" by Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
2) "Pindar" by The Shapeshifters
3) "California Über Alles" by Dead Kennedeys
4) "Rock the Nation" by Michael Franti & Spearhead
5) "Imagine / Walk on the Wild Side" by RX featuring George W. Bush
6) "(I'm in Love With) Margaret Thatcher" by Notsensibles
7) "Behavior Modification / We Will Rock You (Bipartisan Mix)" by Emergency Broadcast Network
8) "Mass Destruction (George W. Mix)" by Faithless
9) "What If We All Stopped Paying Taxes" by Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
10) "That's What a Pimp Does (Obama Mix)" by DJ Excel
11) "Chocolate City" by Parliament
12) "George Bush Doesn't Like Black People" by The Legendary K.O.
13) "Election Day" by Arcadia
14) "Alles Neu" by Peter Fox
15) "The Star-Spangled Banner" by Rebekah Del Rio and the Section Quartet

Laugh Riot - Voting Day laughs!

2008-11-01T12:15:00.000-07:00

This Tuesday night, November 4th, is a night we have all been waiting for;
VOTING NIGHT!

There's no doubt that everyone reading this blog is already planning on exercising their vote, if you haven't already done it by mail. Good Job you!

iO West Theater wants to reward YOU (the citizen who knows and appreciates their rights)
by offering you a FREE NIGHT OF HILARIOUS IMPROV!

All you have to do is show your "I voted" sticker at the door and you can get into the improv shows free all night long.

Featured on Tuesday nights @ 9:00 pm
is the Amazing improv team
USS ROCK N' ROLL
They always have FREE PIZZA for the audience
and beers for 3$ or less

to view some of USS's funny short films
go HERE!

Their latest short film: Halloween Surprise!

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Don't stress over who's gonna win,
Come on down to iO West and let us help you laugh the worry away.

iO West Theater
6366 Hollywood Blvd.

Mindy Kaling. Web Series. That's It.

2008-10-29T14:45:00.000-07:00

House Poor: Episode One.

"It's like someone's kicking you in the stomach, but you like it."
LINKS:
Strike TV: House Poor (website)
Things I've Bought That I Love (Mindy Kaling's blog, which does exactly as it says on the tin.)

MIXTAPE MONDAYS: Dancing With the Devil By the Pale Moonlight

2008-10-27T10:46:00.000-07:00

1) "Music to Be Murdered By" by Alfred Hitchcock
2) "This is Halloween" by Danny Elfman
3) "Somebody's Watching Me (Thriller Mix)" by Rockwell featuring Michael Jackson and Vincent Price
4) "Pet Semetary" by Ramones
5) "At the Munsters'" by The Munsters
6) "Magic and Ecstasy (The Power of Christ Mix)" by Ennio Morricone
7) "Spellbound" by Siouxsie & The Banshees
8) "A Christian Perspective" by Mike Warnke
9) "No One Lives Forever" by Oingo Boingo
10) "Hell" by Squirrel Nut Zippers
11) "Red Right Hand" by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds
12) "Halloween (Theme)" by John Carpenter
13) "The Hanging Garden" by The Cure
14) "1-800 SUICIDE" by Gravediggaz
15) "Living Dead Girl (Naked Exorcism Mix)" by Rob Zombie
16) "The Horror" by RJD2
17) "Mask" by Bauhaus
18) "Bela Lugosi's Dead (The Blood is the Life Mix)" by Nouvelle Vague
19) "Blue Flowers Revisited" by Dr. Octagon
20) "Monologue" by She Wants Revenge
21) "March of the Sinister Ducks" by The Sinister Ducks
22) "In Heaven" by Miranda Sex Garden
23) "The Hour of Parting" by Alfred Hitchcock and Danny Elfman

Quick Notes on Select Songs:
*It's fair to say that "Magic and Ecstasy" is pretty much the only redeeming thing to come from the otherwise unwisely-conceived Exorcist sequel, Exorcist II: The Heretic. In a spectacular display of what it means to be unclear on the concept, John Boorman's sequel took everything that made the original film compelling -- its atmosphere, its subtlety, its impossibly solid grounding in reality -- and threw it all out the window in favor of pseudo-science and cheap gothic thrills:

*Improbably, the Sinister Ducks is a collaboration between Bauhaus bassist David J and comic book writer Allan Moore. A one-off single in the early 80's, the pair would later work together again on Moore's album The Moon and Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre of Marvels.

*One of the most memorable sequences in David Lynch's first film Eraserhead occurs when a lady in a radiator sings a song about the glories of the afterlife, appropriately titled In Heaven. The song has become an unlikely favorite of alt-rock bands everywhere: Bauhaus performed a cover at their final live show of their pre-reunion career; The Pixies' version is a fan favorite; and then of course there's the Miranda Sex Garden take featured here. But for pure surrealism, nothing beats the original:

Dancing With the Devil By the Pale Moonlight Mixtape

THIS WEEKEND: Undead Burlesque!

2008-10-23T09:46:00.001-07:00

It'll be a lot like this, but sexy.
Once again it's time for the vixenous vamps of the Orange County ~~Undead~~ Underground Burlesque Society to present their annual celebration of All Hallows Eve with their new show "Night of the Living Dolls." We can't say for certain, but it's a good bet that the evening's festivities will include: faux-pagan rituals; skimpy costumes; huge fuck-off bat wings; innuendos of a sexual nature; Halloween pop-hits of ages past; pretty girls; recondite voodoo rites; tongue-in-cheek references to some of your favorite scary movies; fake blood; and a plethora of burlesqueing. Bring your own candy and costumes, if that's your thing. And be sure to make your reservations early, as the show always sells out.

WHERE: The Hunger Artists Theater in Fullerton
WHEN: Friday and Saturday Nights, October 24th thru November 1st, 2008 @ 11:00pm.
COST: $15 (though you will be annoyingly unable to find that information anywhere on their website)
MORE INFO: http://www.hungerartists.net/ocubs/

WEDNESDAY: Michel Gondry Book Launch and Signing

2008-10-21T11:55:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow night the uber-cool "curated bookstore" Family on Fairfax will play host to filmmaker Michel Gondry, as he launches two new books -- one a do-it-yourself semi-memoir inspired in part by his film Be Kind Rewind, called You Like This Film Because You're in It; the other a comic book written and drawn by Gondry titled We Lost the War But Not the Battle, which Family describes as an "action-packed comic book [which] tells the story of four friends, the French army, and a beautifully horrifying conspiracy to take over the world. This one has it all: guns, girls, death, friendship, Mia Farrow, and so much more." The launch will be followed by a signing and a live DJ set from J-Lep.

For those in need of a brief refresher course in the sparkling hallows of Mr. Gondry's imagination, Tragically Hipster is once again pleased to oblige:

"Fell in Love With a Girl" (music video)

"Les Callioux" (music video)

"If You Rescue Me" (from The Science of Sleep)
WHERE: Family on Fairfax
WHEN: Wednesday, October 22nd 2008 @ 7:30p.m.
COST: Free, but you should probably buy something and support cool local businesses.
MORE INFO:Family website.

Special Note for Sarah Treem: Meredith Monk at REDCAT

2008-10-20T11:00:00.000-07:00

A few months back I took in a performance of Sarah Treem's play A Feminine Ending at South Coast Repertory. Though it was by and large an enjoyable piece, the music lover in me couldn't help but be irked when the main character -- a young wannabe composer with the aggravating name of Amanda Blue -- monologued at length about how she had searched extensively but had yet to discover a single major female composer. Sitting in my seat, I could think of at least three, and the fact that the character couldn't meant either that she was remarkably uneducated in her chosen field or that the playwright who created her had deliberately skimped in her research, probably for thematic expediency's sake.

All of which is a roundabout way of getting to the point, which is that next week the Los Angeles REDCAT center will host the area premier of Songs of Ascension by Meredith Monk and Ann Hamilton.

Songs of Ascension Preview
The REDCAT website, ever willing to reduce its hyperbole to the merest whisper, describes the performance thusly: "Soaring to a grand scale of artistic gesture and ambition, this major new multimedia work reunites two of the most influential artists in the United States today. Monk’s signature form of incantatory music-theater finds an uncanny match in Hamilton’s sensuous visual artistry as the full-evening piece channels an exploration of the spiritual, vocal, and physical notions of ascension across geography and time."

Future Amanda Blues of our readership would do well to check out Peter Greenaway's documentary on Ms. Monk, thoughtfully broken up into component parts and posted for all of the internet to enjoy on the ever-useful YouTube:

(Further segments of the documentary can be found here.)

WHERE: The REDCAT theater in Los Angeles.
WHEN: October 28th through November 2nd, 2008.
COST: $30-$35 general admission, $24-$28 students
MORE INFO: REDCAT Website

MIXTAPE MONDAYS: 20 Years of They Might Be Giants' "Lincoln"

2008-10-19T22:12:00.000-07:00

(Every Monday at Tragically Hipster we'll feature a look at a band, performance, or vague musical concept, with an accompanying virtual mixtape for your listening pleasure. There's no need to thank us; it's just one more service we like to provide for you, our dedicated readers. Most of whom also write for this site.)

For my maiden voyage here at Tragically Hipster, "Greg" has given me the opportunity to host this week's Mixtape Monday. I thought I'd begin by honoring an album that had a marked impact on me as a musician, artist and person in general and that recently turned 20: They Might Be Giants' masterpiece, Lincoln.

It must have been shortly after the release of this album when They Might Be Giants first came to my attention. I was 11 at the time and have clear memories of watching a Dr. Demento video special on cable when the bizarre video for "Ana Ng" popped up on the screen. I know I had never seen anything like it before. What I was witnessing was post-modern MTV (before it was called that), a sort of Dadaist concept for music video. (TMBG would further explore this concept two years later with their video for "Birdhouse in Your Soul," in which dozens of people in identical plaid shirts and masks marched in a circle, wearing signs that said "STOP ROCK VIDEO.")

But more than anything, it was the song that grabbed me...especially that unforgettable chorus, with its jangly instrumentation and frenetic recitation of long sentences, like some nonsensical version of "Schoolhouse Rock":

Ana Ng and I are getting old
And we still haven't walked in the glow of each others' majestic presence
Listen Ana, hear my words
They're the ones you would think I would say
If there was a me for you

I don't remember getting ahold of the tape of Lincoln until the next summer, which I was spending at my grandparents' house in Palm Desert (as I often did). On that same day, I also picked up "Weird Al" Yankovic's In 3-D album, which would jump start another, albeit minor, obsession. (Unlike TMBG, that obsession ran out of gas around 1991.)

Those two albums became my soundtrack for the summer of 1989. I would sit and play both albums over and over on my grandma's old portable cassette player: a little box with a handle, a crude speaker and big white keys on it.

I had absolutely no comparison points to draw from for Lincoln, which often makes me wonder if it was the first true "alternative" album I ever owned. (I had picked up 10,000 Maniacs' In My Tribe two years earlier, but that's not even on the same planet as Lincoln.) It didn't sound like anything I'd ever heard before (or since, really). These were skewered pop songs in a myriad of different styles using synthesizers, guitars, drum machines (it would be another four years before TMBG would begin recruiting live musicians for their recordings and stage shows), brass, zithers, banjos, glockenspiels and even a string quartet.

I would often tell people the band reminded me of "Weird Al," but in a few years' time it became clear to me that I was making this comparison based largely on perfunctory aesthetic qualities. For instance, like Al, TMBG's John Linnell often sings with a nasal whine. (Oddly enough, Al's overly earnest balladeer voice also smacks of John Flansburgh.) And of course there's TMBG's predominant use of accordion, certainly a rarity in the pop world of the late 1980s.

And then there are those lyrics, many of which often come off as "silly" (and surely, some of them are) but some of which prove to be deeper and occasionally even profound upon closer inspection. I remember poring over the lyric sheet of Lincoln continuously as I listened. Songs like "Cowtown" were obvious fun, but what of "Purple Toupee"?

I remember the year I went to camp
Heard about some lady named Selma and some blacks
Somebody put their fingers in the president's ears
And it wasn't too much later they came out with Johnson's wax
I remember the book depository
Where they crowned the king of Cuba
That's all I can think of, but I'm sure there's something else
Way down inside me I can feel it coming back

Nowadays, it seems obvious that the song is a brilliant play on words about American history...about someone who misremembers significant events (or, at the very least, a speaker who is trying to mask them...an unreliable narrator of sorts).

At the time, though, the "Johnson's wax" line made me laugh and that was all I cared about.

The full potency of some of these songs (especially the sad ones) didn't hit me until years later. For instance, Linnell's perfectly crafted "They'll Need a Crane" encapsulates the disintegration of a relationship in a way that few songs do, particularly in the frenetic bridge section, in which Linnell almost free associates:

Don't call me at work again, oh no
The boss still hates me, I'm just tired
And I don't love you anymore
And there's a restaurant we should check out where the other nightmare people like to go
I mean nice people
Baby wait, I didn't mean to say nightmare...

The band saves its most daring statement for the last track...the devastating indictment of power, greed, narcissism and mind control, "Kiss Me, Son of God," a song whose lyrics are so powerful and clever that they beg to be printed in full:

I built a little empire out of some crazy garbage
Called "the blood of the exploited working class"
But they've overcome their shyness
Now they're calling me Your Highness
And a world screams "kiss me, son of God!"

I destroyed a bond of friendship and respect
Between the only people left who'd even look me in the eye
Now I laugh and make a fortune
Off the same ones that I tortured
And a world screams "kiss me, son of God!"

I look like Jesus
So they say
But Mr. Jesus is very far away
Now you're the only one here who can tell me if it's true
That you love me and I love me

And to think that my 12 year old mind wondered if this song meant they were a Christian band...

Lincoln presents an interesting dichotomy in that it contains many of the band's most profound songs (some of which are incredibly somber, not something the band is typically known for) seated next to just as many that are unabashedly silly. Linnell's dour analysis of a relationship, "I've Got a Match," is followed by Flansburgh's ridiculous "Santa's Beard," in which the narrator alleges that his girlfriend is cheating on him with a Santa Claus impersonator. Flansburgh's mournful "Piece of Dirt" sits alongside the ridiculously glorious, faux military march of "Pencil Rain." ("They're searching the yonder blue/they look out for number two.") For every "They'll Need a Crane" you have a "Cowtown." You get the picture.

And yet, somehow, this collection of songs works well together as a cohesive whole. Lincoln, like a good chunk of TMBG's work, is like a funhouse: the listener is invited to enter this strange, surreal world of bizarre sounds and cryptic concepts, but somehow one is reassured that everything is going to be alright and the exit will be found. I would cite the band's unfailing ability to craft incredibly strong melodies as one of the main reasons for this. (In a BBC interview years later, Flansburgh would claim that "melody is our secret weapon.")

I kind of put TMBG to the side until the following year, when some girls in my class did a dance routine to the band's cover of "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" for the school talent show. When a friend told me the band was They Might Be Giants, I recognized them as "those Lincoln guys." At the time, I had no idea they had continued to release material. (Back in the pre-internet days, it was much more difficult to keep up with current releases, especially when (a) you were attempting to follow an "alternative" band and (b) you were an only child.) Eventually, I would get ahold of that album, Flood, as well as Apollo 18, which both kicked my fanaticism until full gear. I even joined the fan club, a phenomenon that now seems to be nothing more than a sad relic of a bygone era in today's world of MySpace, Facebook and "e-mailing lists." Back then, it was a special thing to get a postcard or newsletter in the mail every few months (sometimes even hand addressed!) announcing tour dates or forthcoming material.

30 discs, 14 concerts, hundreds of mp3s and scads of autographs, set lists, t-shirts and assorted memorabilia later, TMBG is still one of my favorite bands, and while I don't listen to them nearly as much as I did in, say, 1995, they've become, to paraphrase a friend of mine, "like old friends." Even though many would argue that some of their initial charm was lost after their initial duo phase was over, I know they will put out a good to great album every 2-3 years. I always have to see them whenever they're in town, as I know they can always be trusted to put on a great show. Their never-ending output of material would make even Prince blush, and while new tracks often slip past me all the time, I know I can enjoy them when I finally get ahold of them.

But it all started with Lincoln, that bizarre little album that made no sense to me at age 12 yet made all the sense in the world. It is still one of my top five albums of all time.

I've often said that They Might Be Giants is a band you either instinctively get or you don't. Their aesthetic either clicks and resonates with the listener (and often comforts them in some strange, inexplicable way) or comes off as annoying, quirky "novelty music." But to dismiss the band as mere "novelty" or "comedy" is to do them a great disservice. Mssrs. Linnell and Flansburgh are supreme pop craftsmen and Post-Modernists of the highest order.

As such, TMBG fans and fanatics often come off as relentlessly cultish and obsessive (traits which yours truly certainly shares from time to time). One of TMBG's b-sides contained a snippet of a conversation between two people on a conference call who had unknowingly left a message on TMBG's famous Dial-A-Song service. The woman had called the number after seeing it in a cryptic advertisement in the Village Voice. She may have unwittingly summed up the entire oeuvre and strange pull of the band when she said to her call partner "well, I can't explain it...'cause I don't know what it is!"

Lincoln was my first indoctrination into this strange little cult that I've been a member of for almost 20 years now. For this Mixtape Monday, I've plundered my vaults and assembled an alternate version of the album, culling tracks from demo tapes, rare EPs, bootlegs, concerts, web-circulated mp3s and even TMBG's own short-lived e-Music rarities service TMBG Unlimited. (Unfortunately, I could not find any alternate versions of four tracks, so I've retained the album versions in those instances.) Some of the versions even feature slight lyrical variations.

For those who know and love this album as I do, this Mixtape will hopefully prove to be a treat. And for those who've never heard it, maybe this will inspire you to give the band another look.

Join the cult. It's free! (When you call from Brooklyn.)

On the Mixtape:

1) "Ana Ng" (Live at the Sony Music Studios, NYC, 10-19-94)
2) "Cowtown" (Demo)
3) "Lie Still, Little Bottle" (Live on Record Guide, 1988)
4) "Purple Toupee" (Live at the Sony Music Studios, NYC, 10-19-94)
5) "Cage and Aquarium" (Live at the Bowery Ballroom, 10-21-99)
6) "Where Your Eyes Don't Go" (Live on the Frank O'Toole Show)
7) "Piece of Dirt" (Live in Chicago, 1992)
8) "Mr. Me" (TMBG's Other Thing, featuring the Velcro Horns)
9) "Pencil Rain" (Live at the Bowery Ballroom, 10-21-99)
10) "The World's Address" (Joshua Fried Remix)
11) "I've Got a Match" (Live in Atlanta, 6-26-87)
12) "Santa's Beard" (Album Version)
13) "You'll Miss Me" (Live at Irving Plaza, 2-12-97)
14) "They'll Need a Crane" (Album Version)
15) "Shoehorn with Teeth" (Live at the Bowery Ballroom, 10-21-99)
16) "Stand On Your Own Head" (Album Version)
17) "Snowball in Hell" (Album Version)
18) "Kiss Me, Son of God" (Alternate Version)

Quick Notes on Select Songs:
*Tracks 1 & 4 are both from the very rare college promo "Live!! New York City," a full concert that was put out in a cardboard sleeve in 1994. This was sent to me by a kind soul in Hawaii years and years ago when I was a regular poster at the tmbg.org forums. This version of "Ana Ng" was substantially remixed and even overdubbed when it was finally issued commercially on the live compilation Severe Tire Damage in 1998.

*This demo of "Cowtown" comes from the band's original demo tape from 1985. Many of the songs from this tape were later remixed and/or overdubbed for proper release on their 1986 debut album They Might Be Giants.

*Tracks 6-8 were issued as part of the TMBG Unlimited mp3 service in 2001.

*Tracks 10 & 18 are single b-sides and were issued on the 1991 compilation Miscellaneous T.

*All other tracks (bar "album versions") are rare and previously unreleased.

LINKS:
Lincoln (Alternate Version) Mixtape
Lincoln by They Might Be Giants
Miscellaneous T by They Might Be Giants
Then: The Earlier Years by They Might Be Giants
Severe Tire Damage by They Might Be Giants

THIS WEEKEND: All-Night Horror Show at the New Beverly

2008-10-17T09:32:00.000-07:00

Because nothing says "Halloween's Coming" quite like severe eye trauma gags, the New Beverly Cinema is having a twelve-hour all-night horror-thon this weekend, screening a half-dozen disturbing, disgusting, but otherwise distinguished films over Saturday night/early Sunday morning. Tickets are but a scant $20, all films play in "glorious" 35mm (as opposed to the lackluster kind), and all proceeds go to benefit retrofits at the New Beverly (which could frankly use a couple of them oh-so-lovely leather couches that grace the Silent Movie Theater just down the way).

Set to play: Creepers (featuring a teenaged Jennifer Connelly who can talk to bugs); The House on Sorority Row (about the recondite perils of college hazing ritual-interuptus via slashing); In the Wall (a short film so hip and now that we've never even heard of it before!); Zombie (Lucio Fulci's loving undead tribute to amateur enucleation); a "top-secret surprise movie" (which will hopefully literally be Top Secret); The Power (in which Aztec dolls do the kind of damage that only Aztec dolls can); Teenage Mother (chronicling the life of a... wait for it... teenage mother); and wrapping things up with a double-plus-good early-morning screening of Raw Force (which eatmybrains.com describes as "a bikini kung-fu zombie action car crash of a movie," and then goes on to mumble something about a place called "Warrior Island" and how a lot of the footage has actually been pirated from Roger Corman. And are you really going to question the taste of a site called EatMyBrains.com?).

WHERE: The New Beverly Cinema
WHEN: This Saturday, October 18, 2008, at 7:30pm
COST: $20 + $1 service fee (if tickets are ordered online)
MORE INFO: New Beverly Midnights (MySpace page)

Haunted Hollywood Scavenger Hunt

2008-10-17T08:35:00.000-07:00

Did you know that Los Angeles is in the top ten most haunted cities in the US? Murders Suicides, Burned Alive- These tortured souls still haunt Hollywood Blvd. Come discover which ghosts still prowl the area as you participate in a Haunted Hollywood Scavenger Hunt. Form your team up to 6 people and reserve your spot today! Prizes to the winning teams.

*5:30-8:00pm October 25th, 26th, and 31st
*No prior ghost hunting knowledge is needed,
Flashlight helpful
*$25 per person
*RSVP at info@outoftheboxevents.net or call 3237991374
*meeting place will be sent to you upon registering

MIXTAPE MONDAYS: Melodies of the Jumping Fleas

2008-10-13T10:13:00.000-07:00

Laugh Riot - Zombie Comedy

2008-10-10T14:15:00.001-07:00

Hey guys!
In honor of October being the month of ghouls and goblins (yay!),
this week's Laugh Riot is all about Zombies!
I've gathered several funny bits for you to enjoy and they all involve zombies!

First, a hilarious short piece entitled
"Diary of the Living Dead or: Are You There God? It's Me. Also, a Bunch of Zombies."
Written by Jake Swearingen

Next is a solid little short from the LA kid over at SNL.

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

For you at work who can't have sound, here's a website with something for the 80's kid in you, the Hollywood gawker and the zombie lover.

Celebrity Zombies

To wrap it up I present a video short to drive home the theme of today's post:
"Zombie Comedian"

"In My Soul, I Know I Am Asaad Kelada."

2008-10-09T23:46:00.000-07:00

LINK:
Gilmore Girls: The Complete Second Season

"Our Heads Full of Language Like Buckets of Minnows Standing in the Moonlight on a Dock."

2008-10-07T14:13:00.000-07:00

What the Doctor Said
Raymond Carver

He said it doesn't look good
he said it looks bad in fact real bad
he said I counted thirty-two of them on one lung before
I quit counting them
I said I'm glad I wouldn't want to know
about any more being there than that
he said are you a religious man do you kneel down
in forest groves and let yourself ask for help
when you come to a waterfall
mist blowing against your face and arms
do you stop and ask for understanding at those moments
I said not yet but I intend to start today
he said I'm real sorry he said
I wish I had some other kind of news to give you
I said Amen and he said something else
I didn't catch and not knowing what else to do
and not wanting him to have to repeat it
and me to have to fully digest it
I just looked at him
for a minute and he looked back it was then
I jumped up and shook hands with this man who'd just given me
something no one else on earth had ever given me
I may have even thanked him habit being so strong

Ray
Hayden Carruth

How many guys are sitting at their kitchen tables
right now, one-thirty in the morning, this same
time, eating a piece of pie? - that's what I
wondered. A big piece of pie, because I'd just
finished reading Ray's last book. Not good pie,
not like my mother or my wife could've
made, but an ordinary pie I'd just bought, being
alone, at the Tops Market two hours ago. And how
many had water in their eyes? Because of Ray's
book and especially those last poems written
after he knew: the one about the doctor telling
him, the one where he and Tess go down to
Reno to get married before it happens and shoot
some craps on the dark baize tables, the one
called "After-Glow" about the little light in the
sky after the sun sets. I can just hear him,
if he were still here and this were somebody
else's book, saying, "Jesus," saying, "This
is the saddest son of a bitch of a book I've
read in a long time," saying, "A real long time."
And the thing is, he knew we'd be saying this
about his book, he could just hear us saying it,
and in some part of him he was glad! He
really was. What crazies we writers are
our heads full of language like buckets of minnows
standing in the moonlight on a dock. Ray
was a good writer, a wonderful writer, and his
poems are good, most of them and they made me
cry, there at my kitchen table with my head down,
me, a sixty-seven-year-old galoot, an old fool
because all old men are fools, they have to be,
shoveling big jagged chunks of that ordinary pie
into my mouth, and the water falling from my eyes
onto the pie, the plate, my hand, little speckles
shining in the light, brightening the colors, and I
ate that goddamn pie, and it tasted good to me.

LINKS:
Parting Words: Remembering Hayden Carruth (NPR)
Hayden Carruth's Obituary (The Guardian)
All of Us: Collected Poems by Raymond Carver
Scrambled Eggs & Whiskey by Hayden Carruth

scenes from a hipster wedding...

2008-10-06T12:23:00.000-07:00

Jeremy Troutt and Melanie Gable, October 4th, 2008, Laguna Beach, California..

Thank you so much for allowing us to be a part of such a lovely and unique celebration of love. Congratulations and wishing you many years of love and happiness!!

MIXTAPE MONDAYS: U2 Redux (Boy / October / War Deluxe Edition Remasters)

2008-10-06T11:20:00.000-07:00

(Every Monday at Tragically Hipster we'll feature a look at a band, performance, or vague musical concept, with an accompanying virtual mixtape for your listening pleasure. Mixtapes will be kept online only until the next week's column is up, so listen while you can. There's no need to thank us; it's just one more service we like to provide for you, our dedicated readers. Most of whom also write for this site.)

I originally wrote this column two months ago, but an unfortunate quirk of timing saw the Muxtape servers go offline less than half an hour after its initial posting. For this second go round, we've switched to the more reliable and, y'know, actually legal 8tracks service. Since it's a longer-than-normal column this week, you may just want to skip on down to the actual Mixtape portion toward the bottom. Go ahead. We won't judge you.

It can suck, falling out of love with a band.

The first single I ever bought was a double A-side of U2's "New Year's Day" and "Two Hearts Beat as One"¹. I didn't know much about the band -- this was in their pre-Joshua Tree mega-stardom days -- I just knew that "New Year's Day" had a lot of bass in it, and I've always had a strange kind of love for that frequently under-appreciated instrument.

I took the single home and played it so often that I all but wore out the grooves. At the time I knew nothing about the Polish solidarity movement that inspired the song (and truth be told, I still don't know much about it), but I knew that there was something haunting about its darkly aggressive opening notes. I doubt I was more than seven or eight at the time -- certainly not old enough to have a real handle on my feelings -- and yet something in me responded instinctually to Bono's yearning croon

Say it's true, it's true

That we can break through

Though torn in two

We can be one

And for the next fifteen years or so, U2 was my band.

In a very real sense, U2 taught me how to love music. After I played the "New Year's Day" single down into near-incomprehensibility, I moved on to the album that it issued from, War, and was delighted to discover that the version of "New Year's Day" contained therein was a full minute-and-a-half longer than the one found on the seven inch. The idea of a "single edit," that a song could be cut and cropped for distribution to different mediums, seemed enticingly exotic to me, like I had discovered some secret about how musicians worked that no one else was privy to. I listened to each one of their tracks with an intensive concentration, studying every note lest they should betray some larger, heretofore unhinted-at secret.

There were no further technical revelations to follow, but my attention to detail paid off in other ways. After a while it occurred to me to think about why they would use certain instruments in one song but not in another, to question why a turn of phrase in the lyrics of War's first song would be repeated in its last. And slowly over the years that followed, I began to put together an understanding of music that went beyond gosh I like how this song sounds and delved into issues of intent and meaning, of purpose and art. It was an autodidact's music appreciation course, centered on the albums of four lads from Ireland.

I became a rabid fan, consuming everything the band released. Not just albums and singles, but guest appearances, charity compilation albums, movies soundtracks with slightly alternate mixes; my selection of U2 bootlegs is larger than my collection of most other bands' albums. In the days before artists' discographies were exhaustively cataloged on internet websites, I became my own sort of mini-expert on the band².

My musical love-affair with U2 lasted for their next seven albums, each one more interesting than the last, until it finally came to an unceremonious halt during a 2001 concert at the Anaheim Pond in support of their then-latest album, All That You Can't Leave Behind. It wasn't the first U2 concert I'd seen -- it wasn't even the tenth -- but it would be the last.

The set that night had consisted of a hodge-podge of "classic" U2 tracks, mixed with a healthy smattering of tunes from Leave Behind, the first U2 album that I would have defined as "sub-par," but which had proven itself to be inexplicably popular. Just before the evening's mid-point, they launched into "New Year's Day" to a tumult of applause, when a unbidden revelation struck me: U2 wasn't a band any more. They were a nostalgia act.

With a strange, stark clarity, it became suddenly apparent to me that they weren't dusting off old tracks from their previous albums and giving them a healthy workout as they had in tours past; this time they were simply working their way dutifully through the back-catalog, much like a Vegas revival act or, more charitably, a second-generation Rolling Stones. Like the album which the tour was accompanying, this was U2 on autopilot; a giant, pulsing two-hour version of a high school reunion "remember when?" conversation, where you sit around rehashing the details of a shared past not because it was such a glorious time in all your lives, but because otherwise none of you would have a thing to say to one another. There was something achingly depressing about this realization, as though I were one of those stifled housewives in Victorian novels who wake up one day and finally see themselves to be leading a loveless, oppressed existence.

I couldn't listen to U2 for a long time after that. I just didn't see the point.

Every time I put on one of their albums it felt like I was vainly trying to recapture the magic of those early years of infatuation. Maybe U2 was just a phase, and I had finally grown out of them, like being love-sick over an oblivious girl in high school. You grow up; learn not to waste your time on those who don't return your affections; and hopefully move on to fuller, more mature relationships that are still alight with passion, though perhaps not that unique brand of passion that so controlled your world during your teenage years.

When U2 announced last year that they were re-releasing their first three albums in deluxe remastered editions, I wasn't particularly interested. I hadn't listened to a U2 album in six years, and while both Boy and October were interesting records, they were never amongst the best of the band's output to begin with.

But War had been an immensely formative album for me, and my CD copy was scratched and skipping from years of abuse. Almost on a whim I put in a pre-order on Amazon.com. When the album came a few weeks ago, I put it on out of fiscal obligation more than anything else, expecting to hit the stop button before I reached the end of the first track.

I listened to War twice that night, all the way through.

The next day, I listened to it again. And then the day after, once more.

What a fucking great album.

Like every band worth the trouble, U2 evolved over the years through a number of distinct phases. Their first three albums form what I like to think of as their "Christian Warrior" trilogy. These albums feature a kind of passionate aggression not seen on U2's later albums, fueled in large part by Bono and The Edge's intense faith, not simply in religion as a personal experience, but in religion as a transformative political force.

Here "peace" is not an idea or a restive state of being, but a breathing, beating thing that must be fought for, a teething philosophy that is sometimes a struggle to accept, with the easy allure of violence readily at hand. Though it's tempting to dismiss U2's politics as pretentious or eye-rollingly simplistic, I'm struck, listening to these albums decades later, by just how cynical the band really was. Indeed, most of their early songs spit and howl at the injustice of the world around them, and what optimism there is to be found comes not from the naïve belief that activism will make the world a better place, but from the decision to fight on anyway, if only so as to go out kicking:

I believe in the third world war

I believe in the atomic bomb

I believe in the Powers That Be

But they won't overpower me³

Lyrically, Bono has always had a gift for album-long metaphors that he plays with and expands upon in each track, without falling into the trap of making a direct "concept" album. On War, he uses a motif of divided lovers as a stand-in for a divided Ireland, which then expands to encompass a divided Cold War world; and the act of singing as a rough analogue for political action ("How long must we sing this song?" forms the chorus of both the rebel-rousing opening number "Sunday Bloody Sunday," and the hopefully meditative closer, "'40'").

I doubt I'll ever see U2 in concert again. Their last album, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, was if anything even less impressive than All That You Can't Leave Behind. When I can bring myself to check out the set lists for their recent shows, they seem filled with the same "hey folks, you might remember this little ditty"-type mentality that finally broke me seven years ago.

But that's alright. Even if my fandom is only an echo of what it used to be, I'm delighted to find that I can still take immense joy from their earlier albums, not as a remember-how-good-it-once-was nostalgia trip, but as works in their own right, still as vital and pulsing today as they were when first released.

And my breathe still catches, just a tiny little bit, every time I hear the opening bass line to "New Year's Day."

On the Mixtape:

1) I Will Follow (%)

2) A Celebration (#)

3) Seconds (&)

4) 11 O'Clock Tick Tock (Single Mix) (%)

5) New Year's Day (7" Single Edit) (&)

6) The Electric Co. (%)

7) Like a Song... (&)

8) Trash, Trampoline and the Party Girl (#)

9) Gloria (#)

10) Two Hearts Beat as One (&)

11) October (#)

12) "40" (&)

% = From the Boy Deluxe Edition reissue

# = From the October Deluxe Edition reissue

& = From the War Deluxe Edition reissue

Quick Notes on Select Songs:

*Though I defy you to guess it without checking War's liner notes, Seconds features lead vocals by The Edge.

*Martin Hannett was one of the most innovative producers of the post-punk period, putting his indelible stamp on everyone from Joy Division to the Psychedelic Furs. "11 O'Clock Tick Tock" is the only U2 song to be produced by Hannett, and one of only two songs (the other being "A Celebration") that were released as singles but which never made an appearance on any album.

*The original plan for October was to record a series of modern psalms, paeans of faith in a modern world sorely lacking in direction and values. But then the notebook containing the only copy of the as-yet-unrecorded album's lyrics were stolen by a fan during a concert in Seattle, and Bono was forced to improvise new lyrics live in the studio. The result was a mostly-lackluster disc, musically strong but meandering in theme and content. One of the few bright spots is the opening track "Gloria," a song which U2 had debuted on the road, and which consequently Bono had already memorized. The chorus to "Gloria" is the Latin invocation "Gloria in te Domine / Gloria exultate," which translate as "Glory in you, O Lord / Glory! Exalt him!", taken from the thirtieth Psalm.

*"40" is based on the fortieth Psalm, and hence the title. The Edge and Adam Clayton swapped places for its recording, with Edge playing bass and Clayton the guitar. Back when "40" was a staple of their live act, the two would repeat the swap for the show's finale.

--------------------------
[1] I also purchased a seven-inch of Huey Lewis' "The Heart of Rock and Roll" the same day, but there began and ended my flirtation with The News

[2] Even today, I barely have to reach into my memory to pluck out dozens of tidbits of meaningless trivia, the kind of pointless minutiae that only seems to really matter to you when you're young and in love. With only a cursory look at the tracklistings for the new Deluxe Edition reissues of Boy, October and War, I can tell you that they seem to have left off the instrumental and remixed versions of "October" done for the documentary They Call It an Accident, and that the versions of "Seconds" and "Like a Song..." featured on War are both slightly shorter than the ones on the MFSL "gold" CD pressings done in the mid-90's. I can tell you that in the nearly 30 years since its release as a single, "A Celebration" has never before been issued on compact disc, and that the "remix" version of "Tomorrow" found on October is actually a re-recording done in 1998 for the Common Ground compilation. There are only a handful of bands whose discographies I can claim to have such an intimate familiarity with, and almost without exception they're all bands I started listening to in high school or earlier, back in the halcyon days of my youthful passions.

[3] From "A Celebration," on the October rarities disc.

LINKS:
U2 Redux Mixtape
Boy Deluxe Edition
October Deluxe Edition
War Deluxe Edition
U2 Deluxe Edition Box Set

Laugh Riot - Kids in The Hall <3

2008-10-02T22:24:00.000-07:00

I have tickets on Saturday to see Bruce McCullough’s show at the Steve Allen Theater.

Link to Bruce's show.

I have recently discovered a new guilty pleasure online; fan fiction. Here is one of my favorite pieces. It’s equal parts understated and creepy. My favorite thing about this story is that I get to hear Keanu’s thoughts as well as our heroin’s. Man, the author must REALLY understand Keanu.

Awesome Fan fiction!

Who knew that the rantings of psycho, obsessive fans could be so god damned entertaining? It is my pleasure to present, in honor of Bruce McCullough and my long, long, LONG TIME LOVE for all the alumni of the Kids In the Hall, my own personal fan fiction which is completely based in reality... my reality. What?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kids In the Heart

Molly's heart races as her hand turns off the ignition. The Kids in the Hall Show had been better than she'd expected. After seeing them play previously three separate times on two different tours, she didn't think they could pull out too many more surprises. Their TV show had been off the air for many years and as comedians they had moved on to the solo projects that gave their egos a gentle stroke. Projects that separated them, from each other, and from Molly.

Molly's long supple legs exit the sexy, maroon Camero and drag her up to the door of her own apartment. A neighbor man getting his mail, turns around just in time to see Molly's profile before she enters her front door. "Is this an angel from sexual heaven?" he thought? "My boner says yes." Molly doesn't even notice him. Sigh. The facial expressions that Kevin McDonald used as his punch lines were already fading into the recesses of her mind. Tomorrow she would be paraphrasing setups and in a week all she would be able to say is… "Yeah, the show was pretty awesome."

Fiddle through a pile of Netflix DVD's and try to find one that will deaden her mind. Dull the pain of not being able to just… touch Kevin's hand, if even for a moment in passing to say "It's truly an honor." Sky High? How fitting. Kevin plays a small roll as a teacher. Popping it in she sits on her tasteful couch.

Before the previews even begin, there is a knock at the door. "Who could that be?" No one's expected to come over, and yet Molly's stomach somersaults with a pang of anxiety that bubbles from the guts that reside below her Goucci velour tracksuit. For a second her imagination has gotten the better of her. This wasn't going to be The Kids in the Hall at her door. How ridiculous.

Molly puts her deep seeded evergreen eye up to the peephole and she almost vomits into the soft pallet of her hot, wet mouth. "Oh my God!" That forehead, those eyes… it had come true! Kevin McDonald was knocking on her door. And behind him stood the other four members of the group; Dave, Bruce, Scott, and Mark. A deep breath washes over her tongue and settles into her perfectly sized bossom. (They're not too big, not too small…simply enough) Still as a statue she remains to let the blood come back to her brain. "They're just people, be cool."

"Hello?" Molly's voice was charming and steadfast as the door gave way to reveal their beautiful middle aged faces. Did they notice she was dancing inside her pants? Cause her body was still.

Kevin spoke first. "Sorry to bother you. We're The Kids in the Hall. Our limo just broke down outside your complex and we need a place to stay for the night. I know this sounds insane, but do you think we could crash here? We've got our own toothbrushes." Each man stands holding a pair of bunny slippers and a soft bristled, swivel head. Molly's eyes must have given her away because Kevin smiled. "Don't worry; we'll make the limo driver sleep in the car."

Upon entering the men set out scouring her CD, comic book, and DVD collection. Holding up 4 seasons worth of Kids in the Hall box sets, Mark hollers out "I guess we've got a fan here boys!" "Kids in the Who?" Molly is grinning at her own suave wit. The five men laugh out loud.

Bruce holds up her "Y the Last Man" collection of comic books. "Man, you seem so cool. We should party with you." Scott is pulling up documents on her computer. "Hey, are these your sketches?"

"Yeah, I'm a comedian too." The reply was measured. She didn't want to sound to eager.

Scott's face started to twist into the strangest look and Molly's heart stood still as she expected the worst. "These are fucking hilarious! Guys, come read how fucking funny this chick is." As a gaggle they swarmed the laptop. Soon the room was filled with the howling, open-mouthed laughter of five genius men.

Kevin turned slowly, but even so his limbs flailed about in such a way that Molly couldn't help snort through her nose. "Hey, Molly… you can't be a Kid in the Hall, because we've already branded ourselves. But we think you're the funniest, smartest, coolest, most beautiful woman we've ever met." "Yeah! Even I want to fuck you and I'm gay!" Came Scott's two cents. Kevin's hand found hers in something like a handshake and more like a shoulder massage. "We want to be friends with you and hang out all the time." The other four were in unison behind him. "Yeah! Be our best friend!"

Molly's chest heaving, she took in the first full breath since their arrival. She was ecstatic. Her one good eye locked on Kevin's gaze. Silently, they mentally texted each other. His read, "U R my comedy sol mate." Hers read, "Tuk U long ENUF 2 find me."

Bringing out 6 down pillows, Molly barely had time to pass them around before heads were being smashed and giggles filled the air. You could have called it a fight, but no one was getting hurt. In fact they were all healing each other with love. They were all going to hang out all the time. Forever.

"Love Never Fails."

2008-09-29T17:03:00.000-07:00

No on Prop 8

MIXTAPE MONDAYS: Songs for Brian Evenson

2008-09-29T15:57:00.000-07:00

Before I even finished The Wavering Knife I put in an order for his first story collection, Altmann's Tongue, and then found myself adding his novel The Open Curtain to the cart (for the free shipping, of course). The next day, annoyed that my books had not yet magically arrived at my door, I traipsed down to the local used bookstore and picked up copies of Father of Lies and Contagion. I'm now knee-deep in Evenson books, and once I finish the four currently residing on my nightstand I still have Dark Property and The Din of Celestial Birds to purchase, and then I'll have to really buckle down and try to scrounge up a copy of his limited-run chapbook The Brotherhood of the Mutilation, which already sits high upon my list of Greatest Titles Ever. (If anyone out there in the internetdom can aide me in my chapbook-quest, please drop a note in the comments. It's my understanding that Mutilation has forevermore dissipated into the ether, but maybe one of you kindly hipsters can help a brother out.)

There's a future blog entry coming that will no doubt find me wallowing in the sickening hyperbole of my Evenson-love, but for the time being I'm going to satisfy myself with subjecting you good folks to a playlist comprised entirely of music that sounds, at least within the narrow confines of my own twisted imagination, like Brian Evenson's stories read.

Consequently this week's mixtape features chaotic noise-rock; dark southern-gothic country; murderous yarns; surrealistic narratives; industrial drones; much talk of religions and God and Jesus, none of it comforting; angry cellos mimicking angrier guitars; German horror-a cappella; forebodings of deaths and plagues and apocali; black humor and witty wordplay; all washed and spattered with a river's worth of cynicism and human hemoglobin. Many of these songs are amongst my all-time personal favorites, so it's perhaps little wonder that a writer whose work fits snugly in amongst them might curry some considerable favor with me.

On the Mixtape:

1) "Indestructible Life!" by Old Time Relijun
2) "The Plague" by Scott Walker
3) "Time Jesum Transeuntum et Non Riverentum"
by Nick Cave and The Dirty Three
4) "Halber Mensch" by Einstürzende Neubauten
5) "Everybody Knows" by Leonard Cohen
6) "What We All Want" by Gang of Four
7) "Riding" by Bonnie 'Prince' Billy
8) "Altmann's Tongue" by Brian Evenson, Tamarin & Xingu Hill
9) "Emission Curve" by Bruce Gilbert
10) "Jesus Hits Like the Atom Bomb" by Sterling Jubilee Singers
11) "Misery is the River of the World" by Tom Waits
12) "One" by Apocalyptica
13) "Death to Everyone (Peel Session)" by Will Oldham
14) "The Order of Death" by Public Image, Ltd.
15) "Hallelujah" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
16) "Session #13-1" by Hiroyuki Nagahsima

Quick Notes on Select Songs:
*Nick Cave and Brian Evenson have a similar obsession with religion, violence, and language, so its perhaps no shock to find two Cave songs on the mixtape this week -- and, indeed, I had to restrain myself from putting even more. Both "Time Jesum Transeuntum et Non Riverentum" and "Hallelujah" share that certain kind of surrealistic bent common to Evenson's storytelling: they seem to take place in a distinct world all their own, operating under very specific rules which we're never quite privy to. The result is a pair of songs premised in uncomfortable beauty, lovely in melody but with a strong undertow of confusion and despair lurking just beneath the surface.

*In 2005, Brian Evenson recorded an album with Tamarin & Xingu Hill based around readings from his book Altmann's Tongue. The titular story is read here in its entirety, and gives a good sense of what you're in for when you delve into Evenson's short fiction.

*A group of four cellists with a mean Metallica fetish, Apocalyptica manage to rise above the so-so conventionality of the "string quarter tribute to…" albums and deliver a cover of Metallica's "One" that somehow seems even darker and more oppressive than the original, this despite being a more elegant, spartan arrangement.

*"Session 13-1" is taken from the soundtrack to Shinji Aoyama's Eli, Eli Lema Sabachthani, about a future world that is reeling from a plague that makes all those who become infected with it lose all interest in life, and eventually commit suicide. There's no cure for it, but a pair of quasi-free-jazz musicians have found a way to minimize the effects through creating bizarre noise-pastiches that somehow mimmic the feeling of death within infected listeners. Much of the film's run time is spent watching these musicians at work building their songs, which can make for either a fascinating or deeply annoying viewing experience, dependant upon your interests and your temperment. It's not out on DVD domestically, but excellent subtitled copies can be obtained fairly readily through eBay.

LINKS:
Songs for Brian Evenson Mixtape
Brian Evenson's Official Website
Brian Evenson short stories online at Web del Sol
Brian Evenson's books on Amazon.com
Catharsis in Crisis by Old Time Relijun
Boy Child: The Best of Scott Walker 1967-1970 by Scott Walker
B-Sides & Rarities by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Halber Mensch by Einstürzende Neubauten
I'm Your Man by Leonard Cohen
Solid Gold by Gang of Four
Sings Greatest Palace Music by Bonnie 'Prince' Billy
Altmann's Tongue by Brian Evenson, Tamarin & Xingu Hill
Ab Ovo by Bruce Gilbert
Jesus Hits Like the Atom Bomb by Sterling Jubilee Singers
Blood Money by Tom Waits
Inquisition Symphony by Apocalyptica
This is What You Want... This is What You Get by Public Image, Ltd.
No More Shall We Part by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

Interview: Shana Lutker

2008-09-29T15:02:00.000-07:00

All images of artwork are courtesy the artist and Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects.

In Fall of 2006, I went to the opening of the OCMA Biennial, not really knowing what to expect. I mean, I knew to expect Sonic Youth's performance to be fun (though tiring after a while), and I knew OCMA tried really hard for some of their shows, but I hadn't always been excited by visits there, and hadn't been to one of their Biennials yet.

The show was incredible. Easily one of the best art shows I have ever been to. I would, sincerely, stack it next to the inaugural BCAM installation. Yes, there was a lot of frustratingly shallow work that made you think either (a) we weren't seeing the artist's best, or (b) something was being shown as the result of a backstage connection. But overwhelmingly the show was beautiful, funny, odd, surprising, deep, clever, and mindful.

Chief above all in my mind was the installation "May Have" by Shana Lutker, a room-like (though open on some sides) installation that reached from the floors to the tables, lights and wallpaper. There were a few different connections between the pieces, Which I would categorize in two groups: (1) Dreams and (2) Newspapers. The Newspaper piece was a giant reproduction of all of the advertisements "with something to say" from the New York Times over a certain period. No true editorial, and no sales-oriented advertisements. The paper became a new paper, one made up solely of alternative editorial views, as well as views that had paid for their audience. This was fascinatingly woven into the table along the spine in a way I can't describe.

The "dreams" work was the majority of the pieces: beginning with two books recording her dreams every night for two years, then moving throughout the room with "Art That I Dreamt I Made," including large yellow balls resting in the corner of the floor. In the center of the room was a model of the house she grew up in, populated entirely by art she dreamt, such as a series of models of Oedipus. Yes, Oedipus. Ms. Lutker's not just telling us her dreams in a self-expressive or journalistic way, she has an interest in Mr. Freud, Oedipus and what dreams as a whole might represent.

I've read some press about the installation and no one seems to capture the interesting "hand-made" vibe about it, not in a punky DIY way, but in a craftsman or interior designer kind of way. The room was considered, not just a receptacle. Warm, light browns and unstained wood abounded.

I was so enamored of that room I visited it several more times, and upon learning Shana would be a part of this year's Biennial too, I wrote right away asking for an interview. I will definitely be at the Costa Mesa event she mentions below, I hope to see you there.

----------------

What will you be showing at the OCMA Biennial this time?

Under the umbrella of the California Biennial 08, I will stage a performance in Santa Barbara and Costa Mesa and I will have an exhibition at the University Art Museum at UCSB. I’ll also have a preview of the performance, a mini-performance, at the opening party for the Biennial at the Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA). I won’t have an installation at the main OCMA site, but will be part of these satellite exhibitions that will be taking place all over the state. The performance, called “Hear It Here II” is a re-working of a piece first staged in Miami last December, and it will take place at the Contemporary Arts Forum in Santa Barbara on November 6, and at the Lab, a mall in Costa Mesa, on January 10 2009. The basic set up is this: there’s 2 actors wearing headphones on a stage, waiting for lines, and the audience is asked to supply them. The audience is able to tell the actors what to say through microphones that go directly into the actor’s headphones. The actors repeat everything that they hear, without filtering or editing. Essentially, “Hear it Here” is an opportunity for an audience to create the action on stage, immediately. It’s unscripted and unplanned — a snapshot of the audience’s imagination or unconscious at that moment. Both performances are free and open to the public, in nontraditional art spaces, so the crowd should be pretty diverse — a mix of tourists and students and art people and locals. The topics and themes of the “play” on stage could be anything. The exhibition at the University Art Museum at UCSB takes up the themes and ideas behind the performances. There’s a miniature stage curtain, a sculpture called “The Pillars of Society,” some text pieces etched in mirror that deal with speaking and presence and translation, and a floor that covers the gallery.

“Hear Here”
2008

“Curtain, Take 1”
2008

“Pillars of Society”
2008

Do you "finish" with a theme? i.e., are you still working with your dreams and newspapers?

I don’t think I do ever finish with a theme. I would say that I work in widening circles, where each new element looks both forwards and backwards. Dreams and newspapers are almost always at the foundation of my work, because for me, the dreams stand for freedom from interpretation, and the newspapers stand for linear time and history—the subjective and the objective, the private and the public, the unfixed and the fixed. Those are the two elements that are always in play for me, and most of my work has to do with the balance between the two, or pointing to the imbalance. A lot of things that we think are very real are completely imagined, and vice versa. The narrativization of events by journalists and historians always affects the story, there’s always some level of interpretation of information, it’s always mediated. So you start to think it should be rare to have real experiences. But there’s this element of surprise in life that is constant -- everyday, listening to the news, I think, “I can’t believe this is really happening,” but I don’t think this is new. We live in a really dramatic world, and it’s always been this way, filled with war and death and accidents and coups and flood and famine. But somehow it continues to be surprising and surreal to us. And, it’s hard to believe that the chaos and drama factor has not been increasing as of late— it feels like it gets crazier and crazier out there.

2 views of “May Have”
Installation at the California Biennial 2006
Orange County Museum of Art, October 1 – December 31 2006

Is it rare for an artist to be featured in two Biennials in a row? What's been your experience behind the scenes?

I think that this might be the first time that the California Biennial includes artists from Biennials past. But there are a number of repeats – Walead Beshty, My Barbarian, Joel Tauber, Karl Haendel...there might be more. And I think that each of us are working off-site, and not repeating installations at OCMA. The CA Biennial is driven by the curators, and this Biennial’s curator, Lauri Firstenberg, seems to have decided that inclusion in past biennials should not be a reason for exclusion from this one.

As a non-native, do you think life in L.A., or L.A. art history affects your work in any way?

Yes, I think the geography of LA and it’s art historical legacy has definite influences. I’m from the East Coast and even after more than 6 years here, something about this latitude and all the sun and dust and space make the pace of life different – there’s not the same pull from the seasons or from being in contact with other people to keep me on a regular schedule. And in spite of that, I think it’s a great place to work, because once you start working, it’s easy to build momentum and keep going. And it’s a good time to be an artist in LA. The influence of LA artists of the past 40 years is finally being recognized and the support system that is in place here through the network of art schools and institutions have led to a more stable and sustained interest in art from LA, from both inside and outside the city. When I moved here to go to graduate school I was sure I would head right back to New York when I was done. But once i was here for a while, it’s became impossible to give up the good things about LA for the bad things about New York.

“Cluster”
2008
lightjet print
30 x 24 in

“Group Formation No. 1”
Installation view form “The Commiffioners,” Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, May 10 – June 14 2008

“Re-formation and Counter Re-formation (study no.2)”
2008
lightjet print
24 x 27 inches

What other artists are you excited about right now? Who else are you looking forward to seeing or meeting at the Biennial?

There’s a lot of stuff happening in LA right now. I was hibernating over the summer and didn’t see all that much, but this fall I am looking forward to seeing the Martin Kersels shows, Martin Kippenberger, Louise Bourgeois. The California Biennial is rather enormous this time, and while I am personally excited to see the installations and work of Edgar Arceneaux, Justin Beal, Andrea Bowers, Jed Caesar, Sarah Cain, Piero Golia, Karl Haendel, Mark Hagen, Skylar Haskard, Mary Kelly, Elad Lassry, Amanda Ross-Ho, and Joel Tauber (to name a few), I am also looking forward to the surprises too, and work I don’t already know.

Visit Shana Lutker's Website

Speak to her dealer about purchasing

Keep your eye on the Biennial page for more info on her performances

Laugh Riot - Laugh Yoga

2008-09-27T12:03:00.000-07:00

Dr. Madan Kataria, M.D. started a new kind of yoga called "Laugh Yoga." He was always a man who preached that laughter is the truly best medicine. For someone who wanted to be able to practice what he preached, he started a group to do just that. Every morning in India crowds of people meet with the doctor before their day begins in order to make silly faces, talk in gibberish... and laugh.

Here is a video of the man himself:

Hillary Kimblin, a Vedic healer and massage therapist studied under Dr. Kataria to obtain her certificate in order to be a Laugh Yoga teacher. Once a month she leads what she calls a "networking party" where people from all over California come to participate in her guided Laugh Yoga. The session lasts about an hour, is free of charge, and there are always little nibbles beforehand.

I recently went last week and found the experience to be as fun and rewarding as the website promises. People of all ages and colors were there and the atmosphere was warm, fun, and... funny. As a comedian I was very doubtful that these strangers were gonna get into my funny bone, but the yoga is not about jokes, it's about silly. And the silly works! By the end of the session I was crying from laughing so hard.

Even John Cleese agrees that laughter is the best medicine. Check out this video where he visits Dr. Kataria in India.

For more information on the monthly meeting/ Hilary/ and how you can attend,
visit: http://yogaunderthetrees.com/laughter.html

Plastic Jesus No More

2008-09-27T10:49:00.000-07:00

LINKS:
Paul Newman Dead at 83 (New York Times article)

The Ditty Bops at McCabe

2008-09-26T09:04:00.000-07:00

The Ditty Bops just announced an upcoming show at McCabe's Guitar Shop in Santa Monica. They will be performing a few songs as part of McCABE'S 50th ANNIVERSARY SHOW
along with Jackson Browne, Richard Thompson, Odetta, David Lindley, Jennifer Warnes, The Savoy-Doucet Cajun Band, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Ricky Jay, Peter Rowan, Peter Case and more.

Info:

Friday October 10
8:00pm
McCabe's Guitar Store
3101 Pico Blvd
Santa Monica, CA 90405
All Ages
Tickets $20, on sale NOW
http://www.mccabes.com
or call (310) 828-4497

Your National League West Division Champion Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles

2008-09-25T22:34:00.000-07:00

The established hipster code of ethics would decree that we who contribute to this site must conduct ourselves with a certain level of decorum, never allowing our enthusiasm for the things we bring you to curl the corners of our mouths in to more than a sly grin. The essense of Hipsterism is the appearance of foreknowledge, the air of finding nothing shocking, nothing too surprising. Certainly we here at Tragically Hipster take this idea and turn it on its ear, not really pretending to be anything but enthusiastic about what we share with you the reading public. Therefore I find no shame in declaring my unabashed, fanatical, unhinged joy at the prospect of seeing my LA Dodgers, YOUR LA Dodgers, make it back to the playoffs in 2008. If you don't know about Man-Ram, Dre, Russell Nathan Jeanson Coltrane Martin, Bills, D-Lowe, Nomar and the rest, it is time for Hipster Re-education. This is the most exciting team on the field, and when they aren't on the field, they are dancing in the dugout.
Contrary to popular belief, this game AND this team are definitely worth watching! If you need further instruction on the beauty of baseball and the 2008 Dodgers in particular, I will make house calls. VIVA LOS DODGERS!!!!!

Tragical Hipster: pomegranates

2008-09-25T07:38:00.000-07:00

She might feel uncomfortable posting about herself, like it's advertising, (and we're all greatful for that kind of thoughfulness), so I'll do it for her: buy awesome new drawings like this from pomegranates at her etsy store. All are the real drawing, not a print, and are $12-$15.

Seen: Official Graffiti

2008-09-25T07:32:00.000-07:00

Kids, take pride in your community. Don't spray paint everywhere, it looks ugly. Leave that to the people who get paid to do it.

Word power: "Yep" vs. "Yes"?

2008-09-24T15:06:00.001-07:00

Untitled

2008-09-24T11:38:00.000-07:00

From the New York Times, January 17, 2007

TONIGHT -- Hitchcock-esque Burlesque

2008-09-22T14:50:00.000-07:00

...featuring many fine and wonderful ladies, including friend-of-the-blog Dahlia DeLust (A.K.A. Lacy Bottom, A.K.A. Voodoo Dahlia).

MIXTAPE MONDAYS: Musique Français

2008-09-22T11:26:00.000-07:00

Tragically Hipster music idol Serge Gainsbourg,
taking a cigarette break and generally looking cooler than you.

DECLARATION:

The music on the mixtape this week is all in French, and was for the most part recorded in France. Most, though not quite all, of the performers heard here are themselves French nationals. Some of the music was recorded this decade, and some during decades past. Much of the music is pop-oriented. Some of it is hip-hop. Two of the pieces are instrumental. At least four have been featured on movie soundtracks.

Thank you for your continuing patronage.

DÉCLARATION :
Toute la musique sur le mixtape cette semaine est en français, et pour la plupart a été enregistrée en France. Les la plupart, cependant pas tout à fait toutes, des interprètes entendus ici sont eux-mêmes les ressortissants français. Une partie de la musique a été enregistrée cette décennie, et certains pendant des décennies au delà. Une grande partie de la musique sauter-est orientée. Une partie de elle est hip-hop. Deux des morceaux sont instrumentaux. Au moins quatre ont été décrits sur des bandes sonores de film. Si vous trouvez la qualité de cette traduction manquant, gardez svp vos plaintes à vous-même.

Merci de votre patronage continu.

On the Mixtape:

   1) "Mon Clan" by Shurik'n
   2) "Faust 72" by Dynastie Crisis
   3) "Requiem Pour un Con" by Serge Gainsbourg
   4) "La Marquise" by Guesch Patti
   5) "Disco Science" by Mirwais
   6) "Laisse Tomber Les Filles" by April March
   7) "Ne Me Quitte Pas" by Jacques Brel
   8) "La Bête et la Belle" by (The Real) Tuesday Weld featuring David Guez
   9) "Regarde" by IAM
   10) "Je Suis Bien" by Los Super Elegantes
   11) "Cybele's Reverie" by Stereolab
   12) "Milky Boy Bourgeois" by Stereo Total
   13) "Pop Fashion (B.O.F. La Piscine)" by Michel Legrand
   14) "Tel Que Tu Es" by Charlotte Gainsbourg
   15) "Oh Malheur Chez O'Malley" by Sébastien Tellier
   16) "Nid De Guêpes" by Akhenaton

LINKS:
Musique Français Mixtape
Ou Je Vis by Shurik'n
Ocean's 12 (Soundtrack) by Various Artists
Production by Mirwais
Paris in April by April March
Ne Me Quitte Pas by Jacques Brel
I, Lucifer by (The Real) Tuesday Weld
L'Ecole du Micro D'Argent by IAM
Channelizing Paradise by Los Super Elegantes
Emperor Tomato Ketchup by Stereolab
My Melody by Stereo Total
Easy Paris by Elisabeth Butterfly
5:55 by Charlotte Gainsbourg
L'Incroyable Verité by Sébastien Tellier
Black Album by Akhenaton

"No Death For You."

2008-09-21T00:30:00.000-07:00

The Smiles of the Bathers
Weldon Kees

The smiles of the bathers fade as they leave the water,
And the lover feels sadness fall as it ends, as he leaves his love.
The scholar, closing his book as the midnight clock strikes, is hollow and old:
The pilot's relief on landing is no release.
These perfect and private things, walling us in, have imperfect and public endings--
Water and wind and flight, remembered words and the act of love
Are but interruptions. And the world, like a beast, impatient and quick,
Waits only for those who are dead. No death for you.
You are involved.

LINKS:
Weldon Kees' Poems on PoemHunter.com (.pdf file)
The Collected Poems of Weldon Kees
"The Disappearing Poet" (New Yorker article)
"The Cult of Weldon Kees" (article)

Interview: Ariel Pink of Haunted Graffiti

2008-09-19T14:56:00.000-07:00

Haunted Graffiti. Ariel Pink at left.

I've tried to figure out how to write an intro to this and it keeps sounding stupid. Ariel is a clever writer, beautiful musician, nice guy who apologized when he bumped me at a show of his once, and incredibly tireless worker. I interviewed him via email, and am not about to ruin it by trying to standardize his punctuation. Free song download at the bottom.

What are you working on right now?

lots of things a-brewin'...music collabs and band tour holiday's =full time job...lots of time at home with new scanner/printer, struggling to stay on top of paypal orders re: handmade CDR editions/limited press vinyl releases sold exclusively via Haunted Graffiti/myspace.com

Do you have a favorite place to play in L.A.?

Ken Gilmore's.....the 1830 rooftop is always fun.....pacific palisades....Merkato, in little ethiopia,,,,,

Do you think life in L.A., or L.A. pop music history affects your work in any way?

History affects ME, daily, like a curse. i have family here. i largely relive memories by remaining in town so long, revisiting and reuniting places with people i haven't seen or thought about in ages practically every time i walk down the street. can't imagine not living in LA. and why would i? it would be a case of my dropping off the face of the earth, never to be seen nor heard from again, to perhaps to relive the feeling of potential entanglements, new friends, a new town, a new ME to consider.

What's a good way for someone to find out about your music? I saw you perform live at Family Bookstore last year, and you sang a song with a melody I loved. I looked all over on the Internet and couldn't find it, and eventually I forgot what the melody sounded like. I saw then that you sell lots of CD-Rs and limited editions and stuff. Are there local stores where those can be bought? Do you have a fan club? Any website that's comprehensive? Are your older recordings collected anywhere?

everything is pretty much online. music blogs and search engines make it near impossible for anyone to come up empty when they know what they are looking for. smaller labels have helped me press up small quantities of vinyl to coincide with touring and playing live - all very much as a way making my recordings available without oversupplying the demand. to waste my time and energy on promoting songs and records made so far back i can't even recognize myself in them anymore...no thanks. i'd rather spend my time working on something new, with a label that trusts me and supports the artistic process

What other musicians or artists are you excited about right now?

not complete by any means.....

wendy carlos

the ROHA BAND

getachew H/mariam

vahag sakadjian

yeshimebet dubale

mahmoud ahmed

kennedy mengesha

girma tefera

kuku sebesbe

getachew kassa

alameyehu eshete

the Wallias band

geneva jacuzzi

richard ross

john maus

concrete rubber band

popol vuh

olivier messian

julia holter

msr song poems (rodd keith)

icy spicy leoncie

gary war

coL

fancy space people

crooked cowboy

harry merry

nite jewel

black black

clang quartet

syrinx

peter thomas orchestra

freddy k

the germs

the cardiacs

girls

secret circuit

big business

rsm

cleaners from venus

arthur brown

james brown and the jb's just to name a few....

---------------

haunted graffiti djs every other week at the verdugo bar. upcoming: 9/25, 10/9
Download: "She's Gone"
Haunted Graffiti at myspace (lots of upcoming shows tbd)
arielpink.com

TONIGHT -- Brick Screening / Rian Johnson Q&A

2008-09-19T14:38:00.000-07:00

Director Rian Johnson will be on-hand for the midnight screening of Brick at the Regency Fairfax theater tonight, presumably ready and eager to answer all of your most pressing fake highschool-noir slang-related quesions in excoriating detail even whilst he deftly works in a plug or two for his upcoming flick The Brothers Bloom.

If you haven't seen Brick -- which is, along with Better Luck Tomorrow, one of the two best movies ever made about what it felt like going to high school in Orange Country during the 90's -- then get thee to the cinema. If you're one of those poor deluded souls who saw Brick but couldn't do anything but whine afterwards about how the kids talked like they were in a noir but they were just in high school and hey isn't that lame, then maybe you should skip it and indulge yourself in a drive-in screening of the Audrey Hepburn classic Wait Until Dark at the Steve Allen Theater instead.

WHERE: REGENCY FAIRFAX 7907 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90048
WHEN: Midnight. TONIGHT, Friday September 19th 2008.
MORE INFO: Regency Website

Aaargh, mateys! It be "Talk Like a Pirate Day"!

2008-09-19T09:54:00.000-07:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day

Ab Fab Obama

2008-09-17T23:51:00.001-07:00

I do! Roar!

2008-09-17T15:41:00.000-07:00

Hipster Wedding

2008-09-16T16:02:00.000-07:00

Soon to come: "How to Throw a Wedding in 6 Weeks for Less Than $2,000"

I'm marrying The Blogfather on October 4th, 2008 in a park above Laguna Beach. I am excited, slightly crazed, blissful and distracted. I will report back on the results of said wedding. Please wish us good fortune, good weather, and cooperative park officials. Whee!

Raymond Pettibon at Regen projects

2008-09-16T15:12:00.000-07:00

Sonic Youth cover by Raymond Pettibon.

Part 1: Sept 13 - Oct 18
Part 2: Dec 13 - Jan 24

Regen projects is giving a 2-part, extensive show of Grandmaster Pettibon's work, with part 1 focusing on early work and part 2 focusing on recent work. In between, something of his will be showing at the Biennial at OCMA, which is sounding better and better.

I expect, if you know of him, you'll be planning your visit now.

Regen Projects
Video interviews at Art 21

Open Letter, on the occasion of hearing about David Foster Wallace

2008-09-15T12:18:00.000-07:00

Dear Suicide:
Stop it. We're all sick of you. Leave people alone. We have nothing more to give.

MIXTAPE MONDAYS: The Black Frank White

2008-09-15T11:38:00.000-07:00

Finite; No Jest

2008-09-14T12:17:00.001-07:00

David Foster Wallace on failure

David Foster Wallace, author of Infinite Jest, Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, Broom of the System, and A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, amongst many others, apparently hanged himself Friday night, according to the New York Times.

Wallace's work was, in no particular order: darkly absurd; were one to indulge in hyperbole, brilliant; obsessively grammatical; reference-tome-like; achingly referential; uncannily surreal; SNOOT-ish; oddly moving; satirized in The Onion; wryly observant; fetishisticly-footnoted; often excruciatingly long; and, as of Friday night, will be produced no longer.

Another Random Bit: The Perspective of David Foster Wallace
LINKS:
New York Times Article on Wallace's Death
"Roger Federer as Religious Experience" (article) by David Foster Wallace
"Good People" (story) by David Foster Wallace
"Tense Present: Democracy, English, and the Wars over Usage" (article) by David Foster Wallace
Uncollected David Foster Wallace Stories (via The Howling Fantoids)
Girlfriend Stops Reading David Foster Wallace Breakup Letter At Page 20 (The Onion)

Seen: Still angry after all these years

2008-09-14T10:18:00.001-07:00

Weekend Roundup

2008-09-10T17:04:00.000-07:00

Recommended this weekend:

Friday

Try to get into The Echo...

or watch your step

Saturday

Arrive early because this sold out fast last year...

Or see Part 1 of 2

Sunday

I don't know, go on a picnic or something.

While the kids are away, the adults will play

2008-09-10T16:04:00.000-07:00

Whoa. In a year bereft of new Arcade Fire, White Stripes, Kanye West, etc., older artists are making a serious, beautiful bid for our eardrums. First there was Bryan Wilson's delightful That Lucky Old Sun, and now David Byrne and Bryan Eno's INCREDIBLE Everything That Happens Will Happen Today. There are so many good songs, I hesitate to single one out, but I must: When was the last time Mr. Byrne wrote anything as literally gorgeous as "One Fine Day"? Oh, and they're also helping themselves to the email-cubase-file-collaboration and non-label model-distribution stuff (including more clever artwork by Mr. Sagmeister). Being old sounds pretty good.

Listen to the Album, including One Fine Day, and download the song "Strange Overtones" for free here.

Interview: Evan Way of Parson Red Heads

2008-09-09T15:18:00.000-07:00

Parson Red Heads at the Troubador.

Every once in a while, I walk into a club or show while a band is just finishing, literally seconds to go, and what I see and hear is so captivating I end up caring way more about that band than whoever I went to see.

I go home and research the 30-second band, and then go to their shows just for them. What is it about a band that can captivate you that much in seconds? It's got to be a combination of sonics, stage presence and charisma. Whatever it is, Evan Way and the other Parson Red Heads have got it bottled (as evidenced by the 30-second show I fell for at Spaceland), and they would just love to share it with you.

----------

Do you have a favorite place to play in L.A.?

We definitely have some venues here in LA that we consider to be our “home away from home” in a way. Both the Echo and Spaceland are just like that – places we’ve played a lot, with great sound and great crowds. And then on top of it all, they are run and staffed by the best folks you could ever want to meet. So it’s just so comfortable and easy to play at those two places. It kinda feels like coming back to your old neighborhood, setting up in your living room, and playing to all your friends. It really does feel that way! Except imagine your living room is a really really nice venue that can hold 300+.

What's it like to have members who play some shows and not others?

It’s great! It definitely keeps things fresh. And we actually don’t do it QUITE as often as we used to. We only have a few members who really pop in and out these days. I love it. It adds a new element to some shows, you know, so it is always a nice surprise when people come out to see us, I think. Because it’s a different deal – when we have pedal steel with us, we’ll be playing a set more oriented to the songs he plays on, when we don’t, it may be a slightly different kinda set … all sorts of variables like that.

Do you have to rehearse the specific group before each show to check out how the parts sound? Or is there some 'improvising' by members who sense the way things are sounding at each show?

Everyone has set parts – although there are improvisational sections of certain songs that are more jammy. But we normally try to get at least one rehearsal in before a show that we know one of the in-and-out members is going to play, just to make sure everything is sound and nothing has been forgotten. It’s good just to play the set a few times to get the feel of playing with that extra instrument, because you have to make adjustments to volume, and how much you play in certain parts, and you have to remember to be aware of leaving room for the parts that aren’t always there, you know? It makes everyone play a bit more sensitively, and with a little bit more attention to the dynamic of the song.

As a non-native, do you think life in L.A., or L.A. pop music history affects your work in any way? Would you be doing anything different if you still lived in Portland?

I don’t know if the history of LA music really affects us, other than the fact that it is something we listen to and enjoy. But I will say that living in LA affects my work ethic, personally. Basically – living in LA is really difficult. Life is fast paced, you gotta work hard to make your rent and buy your food, traffic is bad … there are a lot of tough aspects to life in LA. But when you move here for a purpose, like we did, it makes you work that much harder to achieve that goal, you know? Because why put up with a difficult way of life, if you aren’t busy working towards the reason you moved to that difficult life in the first place? So I think it really makes us buckle down and continue to just work really hard at our music – practicing a lot, playing a lot of shows, promoting – we just want to do what we moved here to do, you know? I think if we lived in Portland, life would be much easier to get by, so it would have the potential of maybe making me a bit more complacent? Just might not make me strive so hard to get our music out there, because there wouldn’t be that extra struggle pushing me. That is my personal opinion – most likely that can’t be said for every member of the band.

Speaking of Portland, I meet so many cool, creative people in LA who hate LA, and see the Northwest as a promised land. But you've traveled the opposite direction. Do you ever think about going back?

We do think about going back, and I imagine some day we will. Not sure WHEN. LA has been so good to us, and we really really love the music scene here. It is by far the best music scene I’ve ever been in or seen – just so community-based, and so friendly. Everyone feels like they are supporting each other, like they are part of a team. So its hard to see when would be a time to leave. Right now we are doing really well here, and having a blast playing with all these friends of ours and just being a part of something that’s really vibrant. But you know – as we get older, when we have kids or something … Who knows. I definitely think Portland will be a place we head to eventually.

What other musicians or artists are you excited about right now?

Well, I’m really excited about Beachwood Sparks. They are an all-time favorite of mine, and they have recently reunited and have been playing live. Got to see them live for the first time a few weeks ago here in town, and it was just a dream come true!

Also excited about a bunch of great local bands – Henry Clay People, The World Record, Le Switch, Flashing Red Lights, The Idaho Falls … so many good bands around here.

And I just re-discovered Teenage Fanclub. Man was I missing out! They are the best!

There are really too many to name here, but that’s a little sampling.

-------

Download: Parson Red Heads, "Days of My Youth"

See them tomorrow night at Amoeba!

Visit their web site

Visit their myspace for info on upcoming shows in Silver Lake, Los Feliz, Echo Park and Eagle Rock! All between 9/12 and 10/4!

Buy their album "King Giraffe" at amazon.com

Pictures at Flickr

FREE -- Shadowplay Takes Film Cheerleading to a New Level

2008-09-09T13:53:00.000-07:00

Over on his excellent Shadowplay blog, David Cairns has decided to take an unusually active hand in promoting the work of French auteur Julien Duvivier: by giving away DVD-Rs of his 1939 film La Fin Du Jour (The End of a Day) free to all who request it:

In a daring rear-guard action to promote the reputation of defunct French film director Julien Duvivier, Shadowplay is GIVING AWAY DVD-Rs copied from a decomposing late ’80s VHS off-air recording “borrowed” from the Lindsay Anderson Archive in Glasgow. I will personally send a copy to everyone who asks for one. The quality of the disc will be shit. The quality of the film is unspeakably superb.

To the best of my knowledge, the film is not available on DVD or VHS in the U.S., and foreign copies are distinctly lacking in English subtitles.

Having never seen any Duvivier myself, I'm eager to take a look at his work. The New York Times review of La Fin Du Jour from 1939 is aglow with love for it:

[T[he story of the film is that of a home for old actors, a reliquary of glorious memories, a restless tomb for dreams that never were fulfilled. It is a sentimental film, as such things must always be; but it is droll, too, and almost cruelly objective. Charles Spaak, who wrote it; Julien Duvivier, who directed it, and the fine cast that played it have stoutly resisted the theme's inherent tendency toward self-pity and self-ridicule. Nothing would have been more banal or bathetic than an actor's home filled with mirror-posing Hamlets or dear old ladies bent over yellowed scrapbooks. Simply for the record, and as a tribute to Gallic self-control, there are none of them in the film...

Duvivier's understanding of [his characters] is too thorough, too temperate, too sympathetic to permit him to shape their drama deliberately into farce or into melodrama. To see it as a whole one would also have to recall the beautifully happy old couple who sat hand in hand through the film, speaking of their children and grandchildren and deciding finally to get married.
To see it whole one would have to hear the speeches at the protest meeting, when all the guests voted to demand a radio in every room and two free stamps a week, not realizing the home was about to be closed through lack of funds. To see it whole one would have to follow Duvivier's camera through the empty corridors at night, with ghostly applause echoing everywhere -- the echo of a hundred taunting dreams.

To take advantage of this shockingly generous offer, head on over to the Shadowplay blog and drop a line in the comment thread. (And a nice "thank you" wouldn't be out of place, either.)

LINKS:
Shadowplay: The Willfully Eccentric Film Blog of David Cairns
Shadowplay: The Great Duvivier Giveaway

Jim Henson's Surprisingly Violent Wilkins Coffee Ads

2008-09-09T09:38:00.000-07:00

As alluded to in Sunday's episode of Mad Men, in 1958 a pre-Muppet Jim Henson designed a series of short commercials featuring puppets hawking coffee. Unremarked upon in that episode, however, is their inherent violence, which would undoubtedly raise the ire of parental advocacy groups everywhere were they to air today:

MIXTAPE MONDAYS: Unofficial & Unreleased

2008-09-08T11:46:00.000-07:00

First, an apology.

Two weeks ago I averred that the 8tracks service wasn't quite the equal of Muxtape, and that as a consequence we might be putting our Mixtape Mondays series on indefinite hold. Since then, I've come to appreciate that 8tracks is in fact a vastly superior service to Muxtape, and -- added bonus! -- without any niggling doubts about its legality that might suddenly cause it to drop unexpectedly offline.

My initial reservations about 8tracks stemmed from my (mistaken) understanding that you were only allowed to upload eight individual songs to any given mix. As it turns out, 8tracks requires a minimum of eight songs per mix, but I've yet to discover an upper limit to the playlists. Additionally, 8tracks provides functionality sorely missing from Muxtape -- namely, the ability to embed your playlist on a separate page (as you can see below). Indeed, the only drawback I've yet found in the site is a two-song-per-playlist limit by any given artist. This is annoying, but apparently a necessity for legal operation.

Sorry, 8tracks. We misjudged your awesomeness.

And so, on to the mix:

One of the most exciting things about the internet -- other than its ability to let even the laziest of people transform themselves into full-fledged stalkers using nothing more than a keyboard and a Google search bar -- is that it has allowed recordings that have either been abandoned, suppressed, or radically reworked to finally see the light of day. This week we highlight a hodge-podge of some of the best officially unreleased tracks from artists famous and distinctly less-so, ranging the gamut from trip-hop to bastard pop to hip-hop, with a little slice of folksy alternative on the side.

On the Mixtape:

1) "Tomorrow is Promised to No One" by Straw
2) "Einstein on the Beast" by djBC
3) "Every Day I Love You Less and Less" by M.I.A.
4) "HYPNTZ" by Dan Black
5) "Red Red Red (Jon Brion Mix)" by Fiona Apple
6) "An Echo's Better Than a Sound" by Angie Hart & George Sarah
7) "One More Cup of Coffee" by Dusty Rhodes and the River Band
8) "Ironspy" by Splashdown
9) "Familiar (Original Version)" by Radiant Darling
10) "Jump Off" by Black Jack Johnson
11) "Evening High" by djBC
12) "Save Me" by Angie Hart & George Sarah

Quick Notes on Select Songs:

* Tales of bands that have spent months in the studio recording an album only to have their careers cut short by executives who don't hear any commercial prospects in what they've done are depressingly common in the music industry. Keepsakes, the second album from British group Straw, was intended to be their major-label debut. Unfortunately, Columbia Records decided that the disc didn't have quite the sound they were looking for, and the record has languished in the vaults ever since. There's a melancholy beauty to the opening track "Tomorrow is Promised to No One" that the rest of the album is never quite able to match, but which hints at what might have been to come.

Where to Find It: Unofficial fan site StrawOnline offers a three-disc CD-R set of Straw rarities -- including B-sides, radio gigs, and the entirety of Keepsakes -- for £5 (about $10 U.S.).

*It's tempting to simply dismiss bastard pop (or "mashups" as I hear the young people are fond of call them) thanks to the flood of half-baked mixes out there, but every once in a while you'll run across a truly unique offering like djBC's Glassbreaks album. A combination of various hip-hop acapellas with the music of acclaimed minimalist avant-garde composer Philip Glass, what really impresses is the intelligence with which djBC dissects and re-arranges Glass' work to naturally accommodate the raps he lays over them. The two tracks used here -- "Einstein on the Beast" featuring the Beastie Boys, and "Evening High" featuring Kanye West and Talib Kwelli -- are based around samples from the biographical operas Einstein on the Beach (about our boy Albert) and Satyagraha (about Gandhi) respectively. These are some of Glass' strongest compositions, rich and strange and affecting in equal measure, and if I have one complaint it's that a rapper as thoroughly middling as Kanye West doesn't really fucking deserve to be associated with the sounds of such beauty.

Where to Find It: There's this thing called "bittorrent". You've heard of it?

*Dan Black's "HYPNTZ" is everything a cover song should be: playful, inventive, and surprisingly insightful. It's easy to take a hip-hop song and then play it emotionally overwrought for cheap laughs; it's much more difficult to take the same song and play the emotion of it straight. Black transform's one of the Notorious B.I.G.'s bigger hits into a kind of tribute to the man's musical vision, basing his cover around excerpts from Jack Nitzsche's score to Starman. Black doesn't yet have a record deal, but as is to be expected in these situations, A&R reps are in hot pursuit.

Where to Find It: Dan Black's MySpace page.

*Of all the songs on the leaked version of Fiona Apple's album Extraordinary Machine, it's "Red Red Red" that sounds the most different from its officially-released counterpart. On the final album it’s a slow, almost torch-like song. This earlier version features a fiery, melodramatic string arrangement from producer Jon Brion, the better to highlight the passion of its lyrics.

Where to Find It: Bittorrent, or a bit of judicious Googling should do you right.

*The product of a collaboration between Australian singer Angie Hart (formerly of Frente! and Splendid) and Los Angeles-area composer George Sarah, "An Echo's Better Than a Sound" and "Save Me" were recorded as demos for a possible album which never materialized.

Where to Find It: For a while the unofficial fan site splendidtheband.com hosted a copy of the demo disc, but like the collaboartion between Hart and Sarah, it's now defunct. Your best bet would be to try Soulseek or a similar service.

*Dusty Rhodes and the River Band's excellent cover of "One More Cup of Coffee" showed up unexpectedly one day on their MySpace page, and then a few days later disappeared with an equal lack on fanfair. It hasn't cropped up on any of their self-released discs or on their SideOne Dummy debut album, so for the time being we're going to consider this one lost in the ether.

Where to Find It: Go to their Myspace page and beg.

*Splashdown is another band which fell victim to an apparent lack of confidence on the part of its label. Their unreleased second album Blueshift, from which "Ironspy" is taken, hails from that brief period near the end of the last millennium where trip-hop and electronica looked poised to be the Next Big Thing in American music, but instead wasn't.

Where to Find It: You can download the entire Blueshift album, along with everything else Splashdown ever recorded, at Splashdownloads. Unusually, this site has been given an official blessing by the band, so you can gorge yourself with a clear conscience.

*For Mos Def fans, the Black Jack Johnson project has reached near-legendary proportions. A rock-and-rap collaboration between Def and members of Bad Brains and Arrested Development (the band, not the show), it heralded the coming of a new era of live hip-hop, featuring original beats not smothered in samples. Unfortunately, the album never materialized, and other than a few bizarrely inappropriate moments on his album The New Danger, Black Jack Johnson seems to have fallen to the wayside. But in 2003 Mos Def did drop a white label 12" with a song called "Jump Off," featuring an appearance by Ludacris. A clear outtake from the Black Jack Johnson sessions, this track was later reworked for inclusion on the European release of The New Danger.

Where to Find It: The full album, if it exists, has yet to leak. But you can grab a copy of the "Jump Off" white label right here.

Nine steps to enjoying a cheap weekday using only a few city blocks of Oceanside

2008-09-08T08:31:00.000-07:00

1. Take an Amtrak train to the Oceanside Train Station. From Fullerton, the ticket is $15 and the trip takes roughly 90 minutes. While on board, you can buy several refreshments, such as chips, sandwiches and the world's worst pre-packaged pizza. They also offer several beers - from domestic classics like Budweiser to imported mainstays like Corona and Heineken, and even Arrogant Bastard Ale if you feel like making a statement - and small bottles of wine, to make the prospect of no-responsibility travel just that much more appealing.

2. From there, it's a short walk to the ocean.

Swim, surf, bodyboard, make a sand castle or enjoy the sun destroying your skin. It's the edge of the world, and on weekdays, it's practically all yours!

3. Feeling hungry, but don't want to indulge in the multitude of seafood restaurants? Take a walk to the edge of the pier, where you'll find a Ruby's Diner waiting for you.

Enjoy a huge-ass mound of beef and a chocolate coke while listening to the hits of yesteryear.

4. Walk back to shore. If you keep walking straight, you'll end up in downtown Oceanside, on Pier View Way. Enjoy all that this surfer town has to offer, from a beautiful complex housing their Public Library and City Hall to the California Surf Museum to the Star Theater (currently holding auditions for their production of "Beauty and the Beast").

5. Head South on Coast Hwy and enter Inner World Gifts, between Pier View Way and Mission Ave. There, you can buy witty bumper stickers (such as "Keep Honking, I'm Reloading"), buy a t-shirt for your favorite alternative band or cult image or simply skip all of that and marvel at their fantastic collection of punk CD's. And who knows, you may find some rare gem, such as Tom Waits's "Blood Money" on vinyl.

6. Stop off at T-Shirt Mart (on the corner of Coast Hwy and Mission Ave.), where you can buy four cheaply made, slightly amusing t-shirts for $10.99 (or $3.50 each).

7. Make sure to stop by Little Louie's Souvenir Shop, for all of the Oceanside-themed goodies you could possibly want. Postcards, snowglobes, lighters, Christmas ornaments, onesies, bottle openers, magnets, bottle-opening magnets, they've got everything that you'd want that says "Oceanside" on it.

8. Finally, it's time to head back home. Take a walk back to the Oceanside Amtrak Station and enjoy some Burger King while you wait for your train.

9. Congratulate yourself. You'll have spent around $100, including train ticket, and you'll have only walked a few miles, which is a great workout without qualifying you for Hippie Wanderer status. In the meantime, you'll have been witness to beach bums having their vodka bottles dumped out by the police, and you'll find handmade jewelry being sold next door to an army supply shop. If you go on the right night, you might find an Orange County Register theater reviewer hosting a night of ragtime piano. And in the end, you'll have experienced a fun, relaxing day in this unique hybrid of a town, where surfers, tourists and the military all convene.

A Brief Appreciation of the Ingenious Design of McSweeney's 28th Issue

2008-09-05T12:31:00.000-07:00

The latest issue of McSweeney's Quarterly Concern -- a magazine which began as a forum for short stories rejected by other publications but which quickly morphed into an oddly-swaggered beast devoted to playful surrealism, humanist storytelling and ingenuous presentation in about equal measure -- arrived at my doorstep earlier this week, and on a pure objet d'art-level, it's a stunner.

Though the content of any given McSweeney's issue can be hit-and-miss -- and sometimes far more "miss" than "hit" -- the design of the issues are roundly beyond reproach: inventive and sumptuous in equal measure. There was the issue on comics that featured a wrap-around dust jacket which folded out to become its own newsprint comics-section; the mail issue, which arrived as a bundle of letters, ads, and other postal-related ephemera; and then there was McSweeney's #16, inexplicably featuring an official McSweeney's comb. But even for a publication with such an extensive history of unique presentations, the latest volume outdoes itself.

McSweeney's #28 focuses on the "resurrection and reinvention of the fable," and as such features eight separate hardcover books, each containing one fable apiece and a handful of accompanying illustrations.

But it's the presentation of the books that really impresses. Packed in an oversize 11" x 9" flat box, a quartet of books are arranged on the upper level, their backs forming an image of a boy crouching down on a grassy field, listening intently to the earth below:

Remove those books, and beneath you find another layer, both metaphorically and literally:

Lay all eight books out with one image atop the other, and it creates an extended tableau:

The fables themselves are mostly light with a slight edge -- stories of selfish children and rebellious communities and lies that do not exactly eat the soul, but which don't sound particularly healthy for it, either. Here again the design elements are employed to great effect, with each volume being illustrated by a different artist.

Virgil Walker, Arthur Bradford's charming tale of an unexpected octopus baby and his fight for freedom, is accompanied by the drawings of Jon Adams:

Easily my favorite fable of the bunch is Brian Evenson's The Book and the Girl. It starts off a quaint story of a girl and her favorite book, but soon develops a dark current of melancholy and dread when an unspecified apocalyptic event befalls the world, hauntingly rendered by Phillip Fivel Nessen's images:

Evenson's story -- which probably wouldn't run longer than a page when typed out -- struck enough of a chord with me in its closing moments that I went ahead and ordered a copy of his short story collection, The Wavering Knife.

A beautiful design and a writer whose work I'm eager to explore; there's really not much more I can ask from a magazine.

LINKS:
McSweeney's Internet Tendency
McSweeney's Quarterly Concern Issue 28

More advertising goodness...

2008-09-05T11:01:00.001-07:00

Mere minutes after having read The Blogfather's fantastic entry about Crew Creative Advertising, I came across a couple of interesting little nuggets.

In one corner is Crew Creative's poster for Diablo Cody's film "Jennifer's Body"...

...and in the other corner is Iginition Print's poster for Alan Ball's television series "True Blood".

Coincidence? Yeah, probably. But the fact that these were released within days of each other is worth noting, a moment in time like the near-simultaneous release of "Antz" and "A Bug's Life".

Also of note is today's story on imdb.com that the poster Kevin Smith's new movie "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" has already been banned in the U.S. due to suggestive imagery. Take a look, and dare not to be amused...

Design review: Crew Creative Advertising

2008-09-04T16:07:00.000-07:00

After being wowed by this poster at the movies recently:

I found out a bit about the poster's creators, Crew Creative, via the awesome IMP Awards. Not only are they responsible for some of the other best posters out now...

...they are also responsible for other recent classic posters/campaigns (note: not necessarily an endorsement of the movies themselves)...

...but somehow, they are still one of the preeminent purveyors of the terrible compositeshop posters that are everywhere (even Dane Cook hates his):

Just like many other creatives, when they create something genius...

They can capitalize on it over and over:

(which can then be ripped off to some success, such as this 'homage' by The Refinery:)

They have also, unexpectedly, been responsible for other memorable posters/advertisements that are not cinema-related:

And they've created one of the most unexpected posters I've seen in quite a while, bringing Kara Walker to the suburbs. Does this make Kara Walker's work more relevant or less? Is this the same thing as The Beatles bringing avant-garde symphonic work into popular music via "A Day In The Life," or is this just greasy ad-men pilfering 'real culture' to sell?:

They are currently hiring for a Flash Developer, as well as, uh, 'always looking'... so if you're looking for that kind of work you might like to head over to their site.

The New Beverly and Seth Green Unleash a CAVALCADE OF HORRORS Tonight

2008-09-03T10:47:00.000-07:00

The New Beverly Cinema's latest guest-programmer festival starts tonight with a double-feature of Robocop and Die Hard, introduced by Seth Green. If you've somehow managed to live a full and complete life without ever having seen the latter film -- and really, what are the chances? -- we'll point you to an early review by the Outlaw Vern, the internet's resident expert on Badass Cinema:

[In Die Hard] Bruce Willis is a conflicted type hero very much of the '80s movie heritage of which he is most definitely a part. Coming to LA to spend christmas with his wife and kid, it is revealed he lives in a different city than his wife and right away gets in an argument with her, knowing all along that he is fucking things up. Before he can even say I'M SORRY three times fast the gal is held hostage by a group of germans who take over the building and plan to steal all the money. Bruce sneaks off with his little cop pistol and the rest of the film tells the story of how one man can kill all of the terrorists by himself using makeshift weapons and detective work -- all so he can make up with his wife.

Now especially at christmas time a motherfucker that watches this movie may very well believe it is meant as a jesus type story. The part of Jesus is played of course by Bruce, who sacrifices himself to save the other people in the building. The disciples include the cop Bruce talks to over the walky talky, who follows his teachings even while the commanding officers and fbi don't believe in Bruce and even hope to get him out of the way. I don't know maybe the other 11 are the guys he mentions from his squad who are taking bets on Bruce. Also judas is played by the smarmy fucking yuppy cokehead who pretends to be bruce's friend but turns him in to the evil king Hans Grueber.

Festival programmer Seth Green is best known, depending on your circle of geekery, either for his role as Oz on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for playing the part of "the wacky geek kid" in any number of second-rate action-comedies, or as the co-creator of the amazing series Robot Chicken:

"Seth Green's Cavalcade of Horrors" as it has been dubbed will continue for the next two weeks and feature, amongst others, Albert Brook's hilarious Defending Your Life and a Phil Joanou double bill of Three O'Clock High and State of Grace.

WHERE: The New Beverly Cinema
WHEN: September 3 through 15, at 7pm
COST: $7 gets you in to both films.
MORE INFO: The New Beverly's MySpace Blog

Seen: Hope against hope

2008-09-03T07:53:00.001-07:00

Talkin' 'bout my g-g-generation

Uncle Jay Explains the conventions!

2008-09-02T17:33:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don't know my Uncle Jay...

My Uncle Jay is a really great person. I like Uncle Jay really a lot. He's a really, really great grown-up person. Anytime I am confused about stuff he does a really, really good job to explain it to me good so it all makes sense. He's the bestest. I like Uncle Jay.

Uncle Jay has his website and he makes video stories for me to learn all about the news each week. I really like my Uncle Jay! You can see him too at UncleJayExplains.com!

I like my Uncle Jay.

And I like his story this week about the conventionses.

p.s. - In case you are dense... this is not really my uncle, but I wish he were! I highly recommend visiting Uncle Jay's website every Monday to get caught up on the week's important news! If you're too lazy to go to the website, you can just subscribe to his video podcast and have it download automatically!

p.p.s. - You definitely need to go view his episode from July 2nd, 2007! This is Uncle Jay at his BEST!

Enjoy!

Further Adventures in Workplace Photography

2008-09-02T15:43:00.000-07:00

California, Seen: Landscapes of a Changing California, 1930-1960

2008-09-02T11:33:00.000-07:00

September 26, 2008 - January 11, 2009

The Long Beach Museum of Art will be showcasing California, Seen examining the important California Scene painting movement through paintings depicting the rural, urban, and changing landscape of southern California. Featuring artists Emil Kosa Jr., Phil Dike, Millard Sheets, Rex Brandt, Leon Amyx, Charles Keck, and Loren Roberta Barton - some of the most well-known California Scene practitioners.

As opposed to the often dark and brooding realist styles from other parts of the country, many of the works in California, Seen were painted in vibrant watercolor. The medium, owing its popularity to the radiant climate of southern California, allowed artists to work outdoors and capture their "scenes" at specific moments when the natural light was ideal. (Oil paints being generally too messy and unwieldy to transport and use away from the studio). Although often dealing with heady issues of social realism, urbanism and industrialization, California Scene painters generally portrayed their environments as fresh, energetic bastions of natural beauty and American ingenuity.

from: http://lbma.org/exhibits.html
for more information: http://lbma.org

MIXTAPE MONDAYS: Things That Go Together Like a Horse and Carriage

2008-09-01T12:37:00.000-07:00

Our theme this week, for those who didn't watch nearly enough Married... With Children when they were growing up, is centered on joyous (or, as some of the songs would have us believe, not-so-joyous) nuptials. Not for any specific reason, mind. Not because congratulations are in order to anyone we know. Because that kind of nepotism clearly just isn't our style.

Here we have contributions from Old Blue Eyes himself; gypsy-punks from that far-distant land called "New York City"; a featured track from The Features; ideological attacks from socialist movements and Australian marsupials; a quiet interlude from a band whose sound mimics perfectly the feeling of spending a weekend in their namesake; perhaps the darkest song ever written for and subsequently used in a real wedding ceremony; a story about that jerk who has to ruin everything he's a part of; and then a nice outro from a band whose name suggests the underworld but whose sound is more reminiscent of a Broadway stage, circa 1938. (If those descriptions don't make much sense to you, perhaps you can take some comfort in the fact that we're not quite certain that we understand them either.)

On the Mixtape:

1) "Love and Marriage" by Frank Sinatra

2) "American Wedding" by Gogol Bordello

3) "The Idea of Growing Old" by The Features

4) "My First Wedding" by The Wombats

5) "The Bachelor and the Bride" by The Decemberists

6) "Wedding Bell" by Beach House

7) "And No More Shall We Part" by Nick Cave

8) "A Punch Up at a Wedding" by Radiohead

9) "Births, Deaths & Marriages" by The Divine Comedy

Quick Notes on Select Songs:

* "The Idea of Growing Old" by The Features isn't directly marriage-related, but we trust that you'll follow our logic in that in so far as it talks at great length about growing old together, it implies marriage -- at least according to what Sinatra croons in "Love and Marriage".

* I love The Wombats. Their first album is the perfect distillation of what guitar-pop should be: catchy hooks, melancholic love-addled lyrics, and great sung-shouted choruses. The desperate repetition of "She's not that beautiful!" in "My First Wedding" manages to be at once humorous and a little sad, with a nice dollop of patheticness on the side. I like to think that Radiohead's "A Punch Up at a Wedding" tells the same story, but from the perspective of the bride and groom. (This is, needless to say, something of a large narrative stretch to make, and is perhaps better left ignored by those more sensible than I.)

* Though at first blush "And No More Shall We Part" sounds like a piss-take on wedding songs, replacing a sense of dread for the more common joy, it was in fact written and recorded by Cave on the occasion of his own wedding. And listened to in its entirety, it reveals itself to be a track of aching beauty, leading the listener through a little mini-tour of a relationship, beginning with cynical lonesomeness and climaxing in a beautiful choral arrangement which suggests a deeper sublimity is indeed in store for those who choose to devote their lives to one another.

LINKS:

Things That Go Together Like a Horse and Carriage Mixtape

Sinatra Reprise: The Very Good Years by Frank Sinatra

Super Taranta by Gogol Bordello

Exhibit A by The Features

A Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation by The Wombats -- seriously, buy this album

Her Majesty by The Decemberists

Devotion by Beach House

No More Shall We Part by Nick Cave

Hail to the Thief by Radiohead

Diva Lady (CD Single) by The Divine Comedy