The world lost one of its greatest songwriters when Grant McLennan died yesterday. I’m sure this will raise the profile of the Go-Betweens somewhat. It’s a shame that sometimes that is what it takes. Nevertheless McLennan left behind a enviably broad and deep catalog of songs. If you’ve never heard them before, there are nine proper Go-Betweens albums. Quite a lot of music for anybody to discover.
Check out David Blaine underwater (cool pictures.)
While looking at for the Stephen Colbert video, I happened upon this depressing update on “Mission Accomplished.” Did you know what V-I day (Victory in Iraq Day) was three years ago?
Stephen Colbert didn’t exactly kill at last night’s White House Press Association Dinner. The response was lukewarm and it clearly put him off his game. Perhaps the situation is just to painful to laugh at. Daily Kos has a transcript of the event.Â
I’m absolutely in love with the music of Lizzy Mercier Descloux. Her records have been hard to find and have been long out of print – but that’s no longer an issue as ZE Records is planning on re-releasing her entire discography. The no-wave “Press Color” and worldbeat “Mambo Nassau” have already been available, but this month sees the release of “Zulu Rock” recorded in Johnanesburg in 1984 and “Best Off” a collection of tracks from her six albums. Her music is unique, idiosyncratic, and quite a bit of fun.
Jane Jacobs died today and I’m sorry to see her go. I probably can say anything about here book “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” that hasn’t already been said, but I will try. For me, the book is about two things; how the ‘experts’ can get everything wrong and how a astute observer can still contribute new and fundamental insights to a field of human knowledge regardless of their expertise. Jacobs wrote about whatever she pleased and was the ultimate gadfly – an amateur and a woman challenging experts in male dominated fields. She will always be one of my heroes.
Have you had just about enough of BoingBoing‘s ‘whimsy’ and the navel-gazing of the site’s authors. Finally come to the realization that the site is nothing but a platform for the self-promotion of its vapid authors? The backlash was boung to come sooner or later and come it has. Boing Boing has spawned two hate sites. The first is CorySucks.com, which uses an algorithm to calculate just how much Boing Boing author Cory Doctorow’s posts to the site suck. Then there’s XeniSucks.com, a much more personal site dedicated to attacking Internet flibbertigibbet and self-described ‘tech journalist’ Xeni Jardin.
MoFA, or the Museum of Food Anomalies is a comprehensive gallery of strange deformations and facial appararitions
I first read about Bethany Carkhuff on under the Paris Hilton entry at Wikipedia. Apparently when Paris and Nicole Richie had a falling out, Carkhuff’s name surfaced as a possible replacement. However, I can find no real references to her except an IMDB reference to her having appeared at the MTV Music Awards and at an ‘unofficial fan site.’ Notice that I put fan site in quotes – that’s because a whois search on bethanycarkhuff.com indicates that Bethany herself owns the site. Is this a most blatant case of self promotion or is it a all a big misunderstanding?
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
All of Google’s various search services on a single page.