February 2008
scarves and caps and sweaters →
I was glad that Ellen made me bring gloves to New York. It was cold and I was happy to have high tech fabric covering my hands when we were walking around the city, even if they were the alien-like linings of snowboarding gloves that have fallen into disuse of late. But, on principle, I refuse to wear winter accessories in Seattle this week even though it is awfully chilly in the mornings now. My...
January 2008
bleep unable to cope with new Autechre album
jstn: ”The album is so complex that it caused the very hard disk containing it to melt.”
a can only assume it was written before the... →
Oh, Law & Order. Are you really “ripping” the Larry Craig scandal from the headlines? And yet I am going to watch it.
Link →
Really, NPR? An in-depth feature on on “annoying sounds” that airs before 7 am on Morning Edition? Thanks.
“sporadic double dipping in a cup of dip would transfer at least 50 to 100...”
– “Dip Once or Dip Twice?” [nyt], on a “scientific” test of a Seinfeld episode.
“Many people, especially partisans, always believe that their own side is...”
– Glenn Greenwald [salon]
The Best 50 Albums of 2007 →
The Hype Machine extracts top artists, albums, tracks from the mp3 blog zeitgeist
What font says change? →
type designers, Sam Berlow and Cyrus Highsmith of The Font Bureau Inc. of Boston, decode the presidential candidates based on their campaign logos. (of course, Obama’s is the changiest. But do you really want an internet company running the country? p.s
What to Expect From the Upcoming Vampire Weekend... →
New York Magazine’s Vulture tracks the inevitable reaction to Vampire Weekend on the eve of their “new” album.
Know-It-Alls on a Riff →
NYT sunday styles go out with Vampire Weekend, they come across as too annoying to be true and/or not good at being profiled by sunday styles.
that crazy avenue of trees →
Back from coffee where I forgot my wallet but promised to eventually return with cash and I’m still wearing a jacket in my apartment because the old radiators don’t seem up to the task of keeping up with the near-freezing weather outside and I’m tired of the heating oil smell of the space heater. Also in a bit of a post-travel isolationism phase, sitting around banging my head...
Booksthatmakeyoudumb →
Books <=> Colleges <=> Average SAT Scores (via fimoculous)
“People like it when you tell them things, in suitable portions, in a modest,...”
– Per Petterson, Out Stealing Horses, p. 73
desert →
to avoid last year’s mad quest for sold out tickets, I bought a three day pass in today’s Coachella presale. Somehow, though, I doubt that Jack Johnson will inspire the same rush as Rage Against the Machine.
Ok east coast. See you and your cold dry weather later.
So far, I can conclude that the cab drivers if Framingham are a chatty and likely borderline insane lot.
Stripes →
packing to catch the train from New York to Boston.
I wish Dodgeball would stop making fun of me for not having any friends (list) in New York.
Whitney →
we saw the Weiner retrospective, a Kara Walker exhibition, and a really amazing room of simulated mirrors.
Apes & Androids →
At the Mercury Lounge on Saturday night. The room was packed at midnight, the show started a half an hour late, and by the end the crowd had thinned. Apes and Androids put on something more of a “performance” than a concert. But a lot of energy, shiny spandex, golden light up paper mache monster robots, and a bit of crowdsurfing. Openers Die Romantik were pretty good, but we were...
Friday night outside the delta terminal →
Why are they (still) playing Xmas music on this airplane?
Plenty if time to gnaw on a stale bagel while waiting for Delta’s “stoner” flight to board.
Startlingly efficient security at SEA has compensated for my inexcusibly late departure from my apartment.
I simplified zachklein.com →
— zachklein made a really nice site. I want to copy it.
musical hotness, the idolator pop poll results are... →
Results of the massive pop music poll are in! Album of the year = LCD Soundsystem; which was my #2 on my ballor. [idolator]
flying trapeze →
over dinner, last night at the pink door.
shows, 2007 (another view) →
In honor of this year’s awesome (as always) Feltron Annual Report, an alternative presentation of my post about favorite shows of 2007:
It’s a regular snowcone wonderland up here.
The people in my neighborhood →
“Gawker used to be about 12 posts a day, and you could scroll through on one page...”
– Rachel Sklar, quoted in “Has Gawker Jumped the Snark?” [nytimes] (to a degree, this is sort of how I feel about almost all weblogs now.)
shows, 2007 →
for completeness, my favorite shows of 2007: LCD Soundsystem, GIRL TALK, the Arcade Fire, the Thermals (in no particular order) Daft Punk, Jens Lekman, Explosions in the Sky, Broken Social Scene the Go! Team, Art Brut, Okkervil River, Beirut Bright Eyes, Holy Fuck!, Animal Collective, Battles Tokyo Police Club, Sunset Rubdown, Grand Archives, New Pornographers
It turns put that I will watch a disasterous football game just because HD looks so pretty on my television.
recommended : "reckless falshoods" →
Ezra Klein’s 2004 article, “Reckless Falsehoods”which compares the reporting at the time to that of the later reporting scandals of Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair: our lingering fascination with fabricators’ troubled personae has prevented us from devoting an equal amount of attention to cases of journalistic mendacity where the psychological drama was less gripping, but the...
The Dark Side →
Making war on light pollution, by David Owen
best thing ever (this week) →
do you have two gmail accounts and two macs running ichat? chax can trick them into sharing screens with each other so that you can access your home computer from work. or vice versa.
can't look away →
Last night we went to a pub quiz in Ballard and got zero out of ten on a round about movies. However,we knew all of the answers to the “random shit that happened last year in Seattle” category. “Editing” a website about Seattle pays off. Along the way we watched the election returns roll in on an muted television, studying body language and pie charts. When I got home I...
“Much so-called security lighting is designed with little thought for how eyes—or...”
– David Owen, in “The Dark Side” [newyorker], one of my favorite pieces of science writing from 2007
Pretty happy about New Hampshire.