Archive for the 'Music' Category

The Vegas Aesthetic and “Elvis Shrugged”

I think the Vegas vibe — like Frank Sinatra — holds greater and greater appeal as one ages because it is an aesthetic that does not demand youth and energy and athleticism, only the ability to slouch, look bleary-eyed, hold your liquor with expertise born of experience, and have enough money in the bank to […]

Keep on Rockin’ [in Canada]

Hey, as it happens, the morning after blogging about TMZ mocking the homeless, I was awakened by my alarm clock radio playing another reference to the homeless that always makes me laugh, simply because it’s so intensely dated: Canadian Neil Young’s lines “We’ve got a thousand points of light/ For the homeless man/ We got […]

Tardbombs of the Middle East

While collecting my thoughts about Michel Onfray’s Atheist Manifesto, it crossed my mind that, given his undisguised animosity toward religion, he probably wasn’t surprised to hear about the recent al Qaeda bombings that employed mentally retarded or Down Syndrome suicide bombers.
Al Qaeda is built in the first place upon a recruitment drive to attract those […]

Sleep with DC: Ursa

While looking for a picture of a bear to put with my prior blog entry about DC Comics, I found a picture of a DC character whose name makes her sound like a bear but isn’t one: Ursa, the Kryptonian villain played in Superman II by Sarah Douglas. And the thing is: I remember […]

What Exactly Is the Sweetest Taboo (and More 80s Questions)?

A few musical notes, so to speak:
•A friend asks what exactly “The Sweetest Taboo” that Sade Adu (one of the three most attractive women in the world, as I’ve noted before) sings about is, and I have to admit I don’t know. It sounds like it’s just love (or, vaguely, sex), but that’s not […]

MLK, Hillary, and Lisa Loeb Clarifications

 
As corrected in my Terminator post, Lisa Loeb plays at the Columbus Circle Borders, not the Park Avenue one, this Tuesday (7pm), the day after Martin Luther King Day is observed.
And an afterthought on the important post before that, about utilitarianism: I did not have Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama in mind when […]

Quixotic Opposition, Institutional Conflict, and Elite Disagreement

Paul Jacob, who I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and who has several friends in common with me (including Heather Wilhelm, who I mentioned in my prior blog entry), was the subject of the top editorial in Monday’s Wall Street Journal. He is threatened with up to ten years in prison for the horrific […]

Ron Paul-and-Johnny Rotten Was Not a Nixon-and-Elvis Moment

I think Ron Paul did a fine job on Tuesday night’s Leno broadcast — calmly, jovially explaining his intention to end income taxes altogether and end military involvement not just in Iraq but around the world, with the audience cheering.  He humbly added that regardless of whether he has flaws, the philosophical message of liberty […]

Tom Cruise, Ron Paul, and Sex Pistols — on Leno 10/30

Tomorrow, when the three guests listed above are supposed to be on the Tonight show (in that order, if all goes as scheduled), is a big night for Scientology, libertarianism, and punk rock — and somewhere out there, someone who’s into all three is even more excited than I am.
Despite the very […]

Control — a Movie About Joy Division’s Ian Curtis

A depressive friend of mine in college (she should be cropping up in one of my Retro-Journal entries in about four weeks) once disturbed me by saying she didn’t think there was anything particularly unhappy-sounding about one of her then-favorite bands, Joy Division. I think most people would agree that Joy Division sounds exactly […]

Timecop, Timelash

It’s fitting that I hear news that reminds me of time travel on the eve of my inaugural “Retro-Journal” blog entry describing events of twenty years ago: DarkHorizons.com says there will be a remake of the Jean-Claude Van Damme movie Timecop, only thirteen years after the original’s release (and just the other day I was […]

Joe Jackson, Swedish New Wave, and Time

As I was collecting my twenty-year-old notes for this coming Friday’s inaugural (and henceforth weekly) Retro-Journal entry, I saw something that made me painfully conscious of how quickly things change: the cover of Joe Jackson’s 2000 album, Night and Day II, to which I was listening.
It’s not just that the beautiful black and white cover […]

Dark Day, Television, and Musical Ignorance

Ah, ignorance — Google makes sustaining that state difficult, what with the ease of tracking down obscure bits of information these days (maybe that, too, will be an argument against the Ivy League in our Debate at Lolita Bar this coming Wednesday). And so it’s sort of exciting on those rare occasions when, for […]

Those Were the Days

It’s the last day of September, and October brings not only the debate I’m hosting about the Ivy League but my reminiscences on this blog about Brown — the start of a recap of my past twenty years, with an emphasis on philosophy and politics. So it’s worth first taking at least a brief […]

DEBATE AT LOLITA BAR: “Is Gentrification Good?” (plus music of the 80s and Seaveys of 1631 A.D.)

VS.

Punk singer Tibbie X argues that gentrification is a blessing, while acrophobic tall-building-hater Aliza Faragher tells her to get out of town.
Wednesday, August 1, at 8pm (free admission, cash bar, beloved a.c.).
Basement level of Lolita Bar at 266 Broome St. at the corner of Allen St. on the Lower East Side of […]