DON'T BORE NINA!!!
Question of the Day
You've been given unlimited resources and creative control to create your own contest reality show (a la Project Runway) or game show: What's your concept?
You, The Night And The Music
I always get a little worried when an established artist ends up without a label and decides to distribute new material on their own. What usually follows are a couple of albums of masturbatory pap, a small-venue tour, and a fade into the "where are they now?" club.
When I read that Trent Reznor was self-releasing a triple album of instrumentals, I feared the worst. That's three strikes right there, an automatic fail, a go-directly-to-jail-do-not-pass-go-do-not-collect-$200 idea if I ever heard one. So, with some trepidation I gave Ghosts a spin.
And then I remembered Reznor's previous instrumental explorations like the Quake soundtrack, and Still, his "unplugged" release, and the tracks that peppered The Fragile. Reznor actually knows what he's doing when it comes to creating dark, moody, even subtle pieces. There are moments reminiscent of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, songs awash in Enoesque soundscapes and Laswellian grooves. Reznor no doubt owes a serious debt of gratitude to Eno, and probably wouldn't shy away from the comparison. Unfortunately there is the occasional foray into low-fi guitar noodling that summons the ghost of Steve Albini. No one needs that.
Obviously there are no alt-rock anthems here, and an album like this won't put Reznor back in the spotlight. I am pretty sure he doesn't care either. He seems content to sit in his home studio creating music for his own enjoyment as much as anyone's. That's okay with me, because truthfully, I liked this better than Year Zero.
The first nine tracks are available as a free download here.
(Cross-posted.)
Oooh...
Crossposted from AngryBlackBitch.com.
From last night's Primary viewage...
Senator Clinton has won Ohio and Rhode Island. Senator Obama won Vermont with Texas still too close to call.
Senator McCain wrapped up the Republican nomination and then proceeded to damn near put this bitch to sleep with a Dolesque (or mayhap it was more Dolevish) speech that lacked energy, vision and substance.
But a bitch perked up with the tale of a for real showdown between Team Clinton and Team Obama!
In the right corner…weighing in at an accusation throwing blah blah pounds…the warrior against all things Caucusal…The Wolfish voice of Clinton 2008 - Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson!
In the left corner…weighing in at a defiant blah followed by blah pounds…the defender of the Caucus process…the Hell No We Will Vite mob of one named Bob - Obama campaign lawyer Bob Bauer!
The skinny…Wolfson scheduled an emergency conference call with the press to accuse the Obama campaign of pulling a fast one during the Texas Caucus and barring Clinton supporters from the room.Bauer called in.
Ooooh!
Wolfson, clearly caught off guard, welcomed Bauer.
Bauer proceeded to go off. “Stop attacking the caucus process.”
Nice.
Wolfson defended. “I would ask you to join with us this evening in ensuring that the serious problems that are ongoing as we speak in Texas are addressed.”
Ohhh!
Bauer landed a big one.“How is this (complaint) any different than the series of complaints registered against every caucus that you lose?"
Damn! Damn! Shit! And another damn!
Wolfson finished ominously, saying he looked forward to "asking our own questions on subsequent calls of yours."
Ouch, baby.
Ouch.
Party unity, my angry black ass…
Hot
Today, GOP presidential nominee John McCain revealed his proposal to solve the energy crisis, which includes powering most of the continental US with the electricity generated by his passionate marriage, mostly via polite air-kisses.
(I'm kidding, of course. I'm sure they have a lovely marriage. Or wev.)
Shut Up, Maureen Dowd
Part wev in an Ongoing Series by Tart and me, named elegantly and succinctly by Tart, about the World's Most Obnoxious Feminist Concern TrollTM.
Today, Maureen Dowd takes on the pressing issue of concern trolling the Democratic primary by waxing lastweekity about identity politics and the Duel of Historical Guilts. What's really at stake, don'tcha know, is not a little thing like deciding who would make the better president, but answering the question: "Is misogyny worse than racism, or is racism worse than misogyny?" Someone introduce MoDo to the theory of interlocking systems of oppression, please.
But first…once again, she has to begin the collection of half-baked idiocies she calls a column by drawing a nearly unrecognizable caricature of feminism:
Some women in their 30s, 40s and early-50s who favor Barack Obama have a phrase to describe what they don't like about Hillary Clinton: Shoulder-pad feminism.In typical fashion, she draws an outline that vaguely resembles one strand of feminism, then scribbles in a bunch of nonsense and calls it a portrait, hoping the casual observer will not notice the differences—the things that just don't seem right when you stop to think about them, like if feminists think men are pigs, why are so many happily married to men…?
They feel that women have moved past that men-are-pigs, woe-is-me, sisters-must-stick-together, pantsuits-are-powerful era that Hillary's campaign has lately revived with a vengeance.
"Hey, that's a great likeness—wait, why does MoDo have a bunny body?!"
And once she is done reducing feminism to a cartoon masquerading as a portrait, she continues on, blaming Hillary's supposed lack of whimsy for the reason women vote for Obama.
As a woman I know put it: "Hillary doesn't make it look like fun to be a woman. And her 'I-have-been-victimized' campaign is depressing."A woman she knows named Doreen Mowd, no doubt—who, like Maureen Dowd, would certainly find a newfound appreciation for Hillary if only she'd make it "look like fun to be a woman," and wouldn't at all then accuse her instead of making women look silly, frivolous, and unserious. Yes, if only Hillary would ignore the constant sexism thrown at her by people who say things about her like she is "openly dependent on her husband to drag her over the finish line," if only she could see the fun in that, then Maureen and Doreen would, like, totally start loving her.
Fer sure.
And then follows much desperate hand-wringing about how "the Democratic primary has become the ultimate nightmare of liberal identity politics. All the victimizations go tripping over each other and colliding, a competition of historical guilts." It's Hillary and Barack, don't you know, who can't stop playing identity politics—not the responsible, objective, and deeply concerned liberal media folks like MoDo, who only keep mentioning how Hillary's a WOMAN and Barack is BLACK because they're so responsible and objective and deeply concerned.
Clearly the only solution is to vote for a white man, so we can get past all this stuff about womanhood and skin color.
Road Show
My brother spent a few days on the road last week and stayed at five Holiday Inn Expresses along the way: in Winnemuca and Fallon, Nevada; Delano and Williams, California; and Salem, Oregon. He noticed something similar at each of the five hotels. No, it wasn't the fluffy pillows or the free high-speed internet. In the dining room where they served the complimentary breakfast, there was a wide-screened TV. And guess what news channel each TV in each hotel was tuned to.
Yep, you guessed it. FOX.
My brother reports:I asked at the desk, and [the desk clerk] said "no, it's not required, people just like to see the news." I said, "why not some other news, like CNN, MSNBC, or a network morning show?" She looked at me like I was crazy -- to her, Fox IS what people mean when they say "news." She was speechless. Ugh...
I've had similar experiences in my own travels; in hotels with more than one TV in the breakfast room, at least one or two is tuned to FOX while the other is showing the Weather Channel or Good Morning, Tucumcari! Usually the sound is turned down and few, if any, of the diners are paying attention to the TV, but I wonder if the desk clerk is right; this is what passes for a comprehensive news source to the average American... or Dick Cheney. If so, we're in trouble.
I also wonder if FOX counts these televisions playing to the backs of people eating toaster-thawed frozen waffles in a Holiday Inn Express in Dead Cat, Utah, or sitting in a waiting room at a Tire Kingdom store in Coral Gables in their ratings to bolster their claim of being the most-watched cable news channel. That wouldn't surprise me, either.
(Cross-posted.)
Happy Birthday, Phil Barron!
Happy Birthday to youuuuuuuuuuu!
Happy Birthday to youuuuuuuuuuu!
You're the maestro of wavefluxosityyyyy!
Happy Birthday to youuuuuuuuuuu!
And many moooooooore...!
Huck Out
Huckabee drops out; McCain wins all four Republican primaries today and effectively clinches the nomination. Lest there's a person in this galaxy or any other who is not yet aware of my position on the sunbaked senator, let me repeat myself: I hate John McCain with the fiery passion of ten thousand suns.
It's on, Old Man. Let's go.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Maurinsky: What piece of information or anecdote about your life would Shakers find most surprising?
I can't imagine what anyone would or would not find surprising about me, since I'm always amazed by what wildly divergent impressions people seem to draw of me from the blog. I guess maybe people would be surprised to find out how naturally shy and still and introverted I am. Which is not to say that I'm timid, but observant and quiet, except for my loud laugh—unless I am among people I trust. And even then I am loathe to be the center of attention, and I don't know how to take compliments without blushing.
I quite enjoy talking to strangers, one-on-one, especially if I can get them talking about some interesting bit of their lives; I love listening. I appreciate endlessly people who will allow me to be nosy in finite times and spaces—waiting for a bus together, sharing a cab, online at the grocery store, getting my hair cut. Those slices of passing intimacy are precious to me.
I am, on the other hand, dreadful at small talk. Awkward, hopeless, ever in real danger of looking horrendously rude—my inelegance misconstrued as aloof disinterest. My girlfriend Miller, who I've now known and loved dearly for a decade, loves to tell people how she thought I was a complete bitch when we met, those first months after she was hired at an office where I already worked. When she threw out her back and ended up bedridden, I appeared with pizza and the promise of good company for an evening, surprising her utterly.
Shy then, she realized. Not an asshole after all. We've been friends ever since. And so my life goes.
Quote of the Day
"I appreciate the fact that you really snatched defeat out of the jaws of those who were trying to defeat us in Iraq."—Poet Laureate of the Galaxy and US President George Bush, awkwardly praising erstwhile Iraq #2 Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno for his service. Gagginating video at the link. [H/T Gordon.]
RIP Gary Gygax
Gary Gygax, the co-creator with Dave Arneson of Dungeons and Dragons, has died at age 69.
Gygax and Dave Arneson developed Dungeons & Dragons in 1974 using medieval characters and mythical creatures. The game known for its oddly shaped dice became a hit, particularly among teenage boys, and eventually was turned into video games, books and movies.Blub.
Gygax always enjoyed hearing from the game's legion of devoted fans, many of whom would stop by the family's home in Lake Geneva, about 55 miles southwest of Milwaukee, his wife said. Despite his declining health, he hosted weekly games of Dungeons & Dragons as recently as January, she said.
…The quintessential geek pastime, it spawned a wealth of copycat games and later inspired a whole genre of computer games that's still growing in popularity.
My favorite appearance of D&D in pop culture was the final episode of the brilliant Freaks & Geeks, in which the geeks invite überfreak Daniel to play D&D with them, only to be shocked that he accepts. It's a perfectly crafted scene about how the game can bring people together, and just how fun it is. I can't honestly think of a better homage to Mr. Gygax.
The scene contains perhaps my favorite bit of dialogue in the whole show:
Daniel: Okay, fine, I'll be a dwarf. But my name is Carlos.
Bill: Carlos the dwarf?
Daniel: Yeah, you got a problem with that, Gorthon?
H/T to Jay in Oregon, in comments, and to John Cole, who honors Mr. G thusly: "Death attacks Gary Gygax. Gygax misses his saving throw. Gygax dies."
A Perfect Storm of Misogyny, All on One Dudebelly
Whilst doing a completely unrelated image search, I just stumbled across a truly magnificent image, so perfect in its encapsulation of myriad expressions of the hatred and objectification of women that it is as compelling as it is appalling. And the best part? Some dude proudly had it tattooed right on his own belly, with his navel serving as the gaping cunt that is the centerpiece of this clusterfuckastrophe of misogynistic horror.
As you've probably guessed, the image is not worksafe, so I've tucked it below the fold. Fair warning: You may want to don your crash helmets for this one.
Wow, right? I hardly know where to begin, no less determine what's the most disturbing thing about this ode to misogyny. Is it the female figure's inscrutable expression, hovering somewhere between the vague, vacant stare of a blow-up doll and the pleasure grimace of a counterfeit orgasm, ubiquitous in porn for straight men? Is it the fake woman's fake breasts, or her awkward positioning that gives the illusion of armlessness? Is it the fact that she is offered up as both figurative and literal piece of meat, about to be fucked from one end and devoured by a wolf from another? Is it that the wolf has been anthropomorphized with knife and fork, collared shirt and motherfucking monocle, as if to suggest an air of sophistication? As if to suggest men are nothing more than wild dogs under the thin veneer of civilization? It is that the woman is lunch—just a light, midday snack in between the most important meal of the day to the most substantial?
I am overwhelmed. Discuss.
(And, please, let's refrain from any fat-hating on the bearer of this eminently revolting tat, as it is truly irrelevant. Thank you.)
He Needs a Moment
Question: how many defining moments equal an epiphany?
The reason I ask is because David Brooks seems to be having a lot of defining moments about Barack Obama and the Democrats in general recently.
The Democratic presidential primary campaign began around Christmas 2006, and it may end Tuesday night. But of all the days between then and now, the most important was Nov. 10, 2007.
I get it. Hillary Clinton is General Motors, Barack Obama is Google. She's the old style of leadership, he's the new. And Mr. Brooks concludes, sadly, that it's the old that wins out.
On that day, the Democratic Party of Iowa held its Jefferson-Jackson dinner and invited the candidates to speak. There were thousands of Democrats sitting around tables on the floor of the Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Des Moines, and rowdy thousands more up in the stands.
[...]
Clinton rode the passion of the crowd and delivered an energetic battle cry. And in many elections that sort of speech, delivered around the country, would clinch the nomination.
But this is a country in the midst of a crisis of authority, a country that has become disillusioned not only with one president, but with a whole system of politics. It’s a country that has lost faith not only with one institution, but with the entire set of leadership institutions. The cultural context, in other words, allowed for a much broader critique, a much more audacious vocabulary.
And Barack Obama leapt right in.
[...]
Obama sketched out a different theory of social change than the one Clinton had implied earlier in the evening. Instead of relying on a president who fights for those who feel invisible, Obama, in the climactic passage of his speech, described how change bubbles from the bottom-up: “And because that somebody stood up, a few more stood up. And then a few thousand stood up. And then a few million stood up. And standing up, with courage and clear purpose, they somehow managed to change the world!”
For people raised on Jane Jacobs, who emphasized how a spontaneous dynamic order could emerge from thousands of individual decisions, this is a persuasive way of seeing the world. For young people who have grown up on Facebook, YouTube, open-source software and an array of decentralized networks, this is a compelling theory of how change happens.
Clinton had sounded like a traditional executive, as someone who gathers the experts, forges a policy, fights the opposition, bears the burdens of power, negotiates the deal and, in crisis, makes the decision at 3 o’clock in the morning.
But Obama sounded like a cross between a social activist and a flannel-shirted software C.E.O. — as a nonhierarchical, collaborative leader who can inspire autonomous individuals to cooperate for the sake of common concerns.Clinton had sounded like Old Politics, but Obama created a vision of New Politics. And the past several months have revolved around the choice he framed there that night. Some people are enthralled by the New Politics, and we see their vapors every day. Others think it is a mirage and a delusion. There’s only one politics, and, tragically, it’s the old kind, filled with conflict and bad choices.
His concern over this tragedy might sound a little more sincere if he hadn't gone positively ga-ga last week over John McCain (who truly does, in more ways than one, define the Old Politics) and in doing so savaged Sen. Obama for campaigning in exactly the manner he describes here. This is the method of the Polite Concern Troll.
What I think is really behind this defining moment is that Mr. Brooks is setting up the field so that if the Democrats nominate Hillary Clinton and the campaign proceeds as a true fight to the death between her and John McCain, David Brooks can go on The Newshour with Jim Lehrer and shake his head sadly that the Democrats had a chance to raise the level of the debate and begin a new era in presidential politics, but instead went with the old. He can write pithy columns about the Dream being Deferred and the dashed hopes of the Face-bookers and YouTubers (I know, that sounds like a genetically engineered potato) and haul out the old clichés about the Wisdom of the American Electorate who needs to be convinced that this nation is ready for enough change to trust the presidency to a white woman or a black man. He is thus providing himself with job security for his punditry at least through November.
Not to be completely cynical, I will give credit to Mr. Brooks for at least recognizing that the old order is decrepit, although he is doing everything he can to keep it in place, and acknowledging the fact that there might be something to this hope thing after all; if only to give him yet another defining moment to wax poetic.
(Cross-posted.)
Emotional? Probably. Praying? Sweet Whomever-the-Hell-is-Listening, Yes.
by Shaker MouthyB
My oldest daughter stopped me today while I was reading a commentary on Gary Hubbell's little column on the plight of the poor angry white dude. It was for the best.
She told me that she's at least bi, she thinks.
As a mother, this is one of the best things I could hear and one of the worst. I told her I was so very proud of her, that I was happy and that I would love and support her no matter what, that she was welcome to bring friends and dates and that my home is a safe place to stay. I had to resist the urge to tear up; I've known for months after listening to her talk about boys and her female friends, after watching the way she touches and watches her best friend and after watching the obvious discomfort she feels when people talk about boy-girl relationships.
She asked me what a transsexual was three weeks ago, and how to tell if someone was a dyke or not. I told her it's the sort of thing that is not always obvious, that she's best off getting to know people. And to always, always address people like the way they're dressed, because to do anything else is to try and deny them the thing that they are.
I'm so fucking happy I could cry. I reached out to touch her head and stroke her hair, and told her I like girls, too. That's it's okay.
I've been waiting for this. I am so honored she told me, that she felt safe enough to tell me and ask for my support. I think I'm going to have to throw her a little party. My sweet baby, my long, tall, blonde smarty. My brave girl. God, she's so brave.
That's not the only reason I want to cry, though. As her mother, I cannot let her leave the conversation without telling her to be careful who she talks to about it. I cannot shield her utterly from the rejection she will get from her grandparents, the way that the family will draw back and treat her like a stranger, demand that she pretend to be something she cannot. I cannot shield her from the rejection of strangers, from the yelled, 'dyke' that I got in high school to the guys who will demand to watch her have sex, demand that she expose herself to them and try to connive or coerce her into exposure when she will not. The people that will try to force her to be more normal or threaten her because she is not. I'm trying desperately to come up with a warning that tells her to be careful but does not make her paranoid.
How can I tell her that the people around her, the straight people, the ones who tell her that they are her allies, will often as not refuse to defend her, will refuse her the right to be protected by the law, will turn their heads and walk away because they superstitiously believe, deep in their minds, that she could be un-harassed if she just were a little less flashy?
Oh my sweet baby girl, it is not a nice world out there. How can I make you safe? God, baby, anything out there listening, this is my baby, my beautiful girl. Make her safe. Please, god, please anything, make her able to trust the people around her. Make them safe to trust. I see a shadow on her face when she tells me, a tightening. She tells me, already, that she knows she cannot tell many people. She cannot tell family but me. Please let that shadow be nothing but my imagination. Let her not have already heard the litany: sick, evil, queer, bitches, need a good dicking. Hell, we're all going to hell.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the efforts of GLBT activists, the efforts of allies and of people who care will make it possible for her to never have someone threaten to beat the gay out of her. I'm hiding my tears, hiding my fears, hiding the words I type from her because I want her to be happy. I will be there when she gets harassed, be there when she is rejected and I will be ferocious. This is my baby, world, and I will not let her be ruined.
How to be the Biggest Asshole in the World
1. Be Rush Limbaugh. Now I know what you're thinking—the instructions could stop there. And, true enough, that'll get you in the Top 10 on any day of the year, but to be top of the asshole heap, you've got to take a few extra steps.
2. Take a call from a woman who says, of leading Democratic contender for the presidential nomination and sitting US senator Barack Obama: "..my 12 year old daughter…she…her statement last week was 'who cares what the guy's middle name is, he looks like Curious George'."
3. Laugh.
4. Later apologize by saying you were only laughing to be "polite," and incredulously claim to have no idea who Curious George is.
5. Go on to undermine your own "apology" by saying: "I'm doing this as an illustration for you of how really uptight and tense everybody is going to be with any kind of criticism of Barack Obama on the Republican side. If Obama is the nominee, we may set a record for the number of apologies to him and his campaign by various Republicans and so forth."
Because, of course, people who take exception with comparing a black man to a cartoon monkey are just "really uptight and tense," failing utterly to see how that's some kind of legitimate "criticism."
Honest to Maude, if I hear one more person act like requesting the basic fucking decency of not being a racist is some kind of political correctness gone wild, I'm going to lose it, well and truly.
[Addendum: How to be the Biggest Asshole in the Galaxy—1. Be a member of the mainstream media. 2. Classify Rush's whinging about "how really uptight and tense everybody is" as "a broader, perhaps more serious observation about political correctness and what can and cannot be said about a black man seeking the presidency of the United States." Yeah, he's quite the astute cultural commentator, that Rush—a regular modern-day Mencken.]
Today in Unintentional Irony
Under the headline "Clinton plays victim and victimizer," Politico honcho Roger Simon writes: "She not only is vigorously attacking Barack Obama but simultaneously portraying herself as a victim. It is a nifty political two-step. She is a victim because a male-dominated press corps has counted her out, she says, and has lavished praise on Obama without submitting him to any real scrutiny."
The thing is, back when Obama was claiming that he faced "the most entrenched political machine in Democratic politics," he was an underdog. Not a victim. An underdog. And he wasn't "playing" one. He was one. And trading on that was not "victimizing" or "attacking" Clinton, but challenging her.
He was an underdog challenging the frontrunner.
She's playing victim while simultaneously victimizing the frontrunner.
This I noticed while reading a story about Hillary claiming she faces a press corps that treats her unfairly, in which the writer implicitly sniffs at her complaint and casts her as "playing" victim and victimizer, all without a trace of irony.
