1. The new US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is seeking feedback on how to make mortgage disclosure forms more understandable. If you have a few minutes, go and vote for the alternative you find easiest to understand.
2. I am seriously amused that Patrick Stump’s song This City, now free on iTunes, includes a lyric using the word “gentrification.”
( Civil War, understanding comics, economics and economic collapse, funky numbers )
2. I am seriously amused that Patrick Stump’s song This City, now free on iTunes, includes a lyric using the word “gentrification.”
( Civil War, understanding comics, economics and economic collapse, funky numbers )
Note from the past week: Guys, I appreciate that you come to DC to march and are unfamiliar with the Metro. But even if you were home at the mall, it would still be rude to stand at the top of the escalator. Thank you!
Dessa, A Badly Broken Code: Much love for this album. “And it’s just not true that I’m a man-eater; all the same, we should probably go dutch.” Cheaper on Amazon than on iTunes for the whole album.
( cheap thrills, Joseph Priestley, regulation and the internet )
Dessa, A Badly Broken Code: Much love for this album. “And it’s just not true that I’m a man-eater; all the same, we should probably go dutch.” Cheaper on Amazon than on iTunes for the whole album.
( cheap thrills, Joseph Priestley, regulation and the internet )
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Another Chuck story for me, in Yuletide Madness: In the Middle
Casey's the only smart one in the bed. I love Casey’s distinction between his partners’ types of stupidity.
The Opposite of Swarb, Connie Willis--Bellwether
Delightful fandom meta in great Connie Willis voice. The puns alone are enough to make the story fun! Now I kind of want to write a Five Cage Fights … fic.
( Chris Hedges on why America sucks, with bonus fat phobia )
( more on the financial crisis, Henry Jenkins on emotion in pop culture, David Rakoff essays, film music, cheapness )
( Pretty Little Liars, the book )
Casey's the only smart one in the bed. I love Casey’s distinction between his partners’ types of stupidity.
The Opposite of Swarb, Connie Willis--Bellwether
Delightful fandom meta in great Connie Willis voice. The puns alone are enough to make the story fun! Now I kind of want to write a Five Cage Fights … fic.
( Chris Hedges on why America sucks, with bonus fat phobia )
( more on the financial crisis, Henry Jenkins on emotion in pop culture, David Rakoff essays, film music, cheapness )
( Pretty Little Liars, the book )
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1. Further on the meat thermometer injury: when told about it the next morning, my 5-year-old son asked, “were you hot?” thus making the same joke his father had right after I stabbed myself. Nice to know the bloodline is running true, I guess.
2. Who else is watching Tower Prep? After last night’s episode, enjoyment has graduated into love. Former XF staff = cool visuals (though evident risk of incoherence in mythology already pending); I was genuinely creeped out. Also, gotta respect a show that’s willing to base an episode on the Odyssey.
3. I am, right now, incredibly infatuated with M.I.A.’s XXXO. It’s something about the surprise of going from “you want me” to the turnaround of “you want me [to] be somebody who I’m really not,” delivered in a way more aggressive than sad about that. I even like the director reference—“I could be the actress, you’d be Tarantino”—because even though the “actress” is generic, it’s pretty much the opposite of, say, a Hitchcock reference, given what Tarantino’s leading ladies are like.
4. The “Snake Fight” Portion of Your Thesis Defense: I loved it!
5. Make a vid, if you want, for Akon’s No Labels theme song: I am not a supporter of the organization, but I can’t help wanting to see what a vidder would do anyway.
( Appropriation art, getting copyright permission, and a bad GRRM book )
2. Who else is watching Tower Prep? After last night’s episode, enjoyment has graduated into love. Former XF staff = cool visuals (though evident risk of incoherence in mythology already pending); I was genuinely creeped out. Also, gotta respect a show that’s willing to base an episode on the Odyssey.
3. I am, right now, incredibly infatuated with M.I.A.’s XXXO. It’s something about the surprise of going from “you want me” to the turnaround of “you want me [to] be somebody who I’m really not,” delivered in a way more aggressive than sad about that. I even like the director reference—“I could be the actress, you’d be Tarantino”—because even though the “actress” is generic, it’s pretty much the opposite of, say, a Hitchcock reference, given what Tarantino’s leading ladies are like.
4. The “Snake Fight” Portion of Your Thesis Defense: I loved it!
5. Make a vid, if you want, for Akon’s No Labels theme song: I am not a supporter of the organization, but I can’t help wanting to see what a vidder would do anyway.
( Appropriation art, getting copyright permission, and a bad GRRM book )
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Your internet is not my internet: I read about this new Facebook stuff and it just makes me confused. Filters are exotic and nobody knows how to use them? And so Facebook is going to let other people decide what my Groups are? Why can’t I manage my friends myself and filter out specific people when I need to? (I take it that hidden somewhere in the bowels of Facebook settings, deeper even than privacy controls, you can do this, but that they expect Groups to become dominant.)
The LJ/DW solutions seem so intuitive and elegant, whereas Facebook’s prompting for me to add people to various Lists has been terrible. Am I just wanting those kids to get off of my lawn? (I should also note: I declared LJ bankruptcy and gave up on updating my friendslist/filters there. I haven’t been filtering at DW, though I also have not been adding back journals that seemed to be for reading purposes only. I expect I will have to start filtering soon, though. So it’s not as if manual filtering is easy. It’s just so much better for what I want to do than automatically being added to groups!)
( reviews: Ilona Andrews, music in Buffy, and digital images )
The LJ/DW solutions seem so intuitive and elegant, whereas Facebook’s prompting for me to add people to various Lists has been terrible. Am I just wanting those kids to get off of my lawn? (I should also note: I declared LJ bankruptcy and gave up on updating my friendslist/filters there. I haven’t been filtering at DW, though I also have not been adding back journals that seemed to be for reading purposes only. I expect I will have to start filtering soon, though. So it’s not as if manual filtering is easy. It’s just so much better for what I want to do than automatically being added to groups!)
( reviews: Ilona Andrews, music in Buffy, and digital images )
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Just in case you don't actually want the new iTunes Ping sidebar to open up every time you relaunch, or don't want those arrows by each song: you can't disable them within iTunes even if you don't use Ping (bad iTunes! My trust in Apple continues to decline). However, you can disable the sidebar (Windows and Mac instructions) and disable the arrows (Mac and Windows) with a couple of command line/terminal prompts.
Can’t reign forever: Via ![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
crypto, Just a Band: Really good electronic-type music; you can get Ha-He for free and Usinibore is just 99 cents at iTunes, along with other songs!
( zombie YA, Harlan Coben, and Hernando de Soto on property rights )
crypto, Just a Band: Really good electronic-type music; you can get Ha-He for free and Usinibore is just 99 cents at iTunes, along with other songs!( zombie YA, Harlan Coben, and Hernando de Soto on property rights )
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I have, of course, signed up for DVD commentary. Anyone is always free to remix, podfic, analyze, or otherwise build on anything I’ve written. In fact, I adore that, and just want links! I’ve also been called on skanky race issues and told I promote heteronormativity, so I devoutly hope to survive further critical responses.
My current Dean song: Carry Me Home, by Marit Bergman. It’s almost happy!
( Reviews: Supernatural, slash/porn/feminism (not the same thing), music and the brain, Columbine )
My current Dean song: Carry Me Home, by Marit Bergman. It’s almost happy!
( Reviews: Supernatural, slash/porn/feminism (not the same thing), music and the brain, Columbine )
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I’m really enjoying Better Off Ted. Not too many triggers of my embarrassment squick, and some really funny lines. Ted on his strained relationship with his father: “We’re like oil and—what’s that thing that’s always disappointing oil?” Clever like that. (And, hey, I learned a new word for that: paraprosdokian.)
Miles Fisher: This guy is weird, and I like three of the four songs on his free EP. For one—a cover of the Talking Heads’ This Must Be the Place—he has a music video, also freely downloadable, in which he does a creditable impression of Christian Bale in American Psycho, and the combination of the song with the images of 80s excess and sociopathy produces a deeply disturbing fanwork.
( parody, Alices in Wonderland, and music video )
Miles Fisher: This guy is weird, and I like three of the four songs on his free EP. For one—a cover of the Talking Heads’ This Must Be the Place—he has a music video, also freely downloadable, in which he does a creditable impression of Christian Bale in American Psycho, and the combination of the song with the images of 80s excess and sociopathy produces a deeply disturbing fanwork.
( parody, Alices in Wonderland, and music video )
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Found on Womenfolk, Olivia Chrestomanci -- Womenfolk didn't mention it, perhaps lacked the background to tell, but this girl is a SPN fan. In fact she is a Dean Winchester fan. You can tell that even without the song "Fight Them Hellhounds, Dean." I knew as soon as I saw the lyrics for "I Would Have Done":
Now no one knows me as I am
No one knew me as I was
But you remember the way that we were raised
On the taste of salt and the scent of flame
Dream-inspired imagery, indeed. Anyway, free downloads! I sense an opportunity for a SPN "David Duchovny, Why Won't You Love Me?" Between you and me (Dean POV) and I Would Have Done (Sam POV) are my favorites of the songs, though I liked them all except the Hellhounds one. HP has Wizard Rock; perhaps, in honor of her album title, we should call the SPN genre Rocksalt.
Not unrelatedly, I would adore a SPN story based on this xkcd comic. Enough with your pancakes!
Now no one knows me as I am
No one knew me as I was
But you remember the way that we were raised
On the taste of salt and the scent of flame
Dream-inspired imagery, indeed. Anyway, free downloads! I sense an opportunity for a SPN "David Duchovny, Why Won't You Love Me?" Between you and me (Dean POV) and I Would Have Done (Sam POV) are my favorites of the songs, though I liked them all except the Hellhounds one. HP has Wizard Rock; perhaps, in honor of her album title, we should call the SPN genre Rocksalt.
Not unrelatedly, I would adore a SPN story based on this xkcd comic. Enough with your pancakes!
The Pet Shop Boys were fun, lots of pageantry and spectacle, including what I think may have been weird manipulated clips from Battleship Potemkin. Perhaps I've been spoiled by Nsync videos, but I thought the not-quite-synched dancers were the weak point. If only they had the dancers from the Minimal video. But they blended the end of Minimal into the beginning of Shopping, which makes amazing sense. Also: Rent! And Can You Forgive Her? There is a whole 'nother musical in the PSB ouvre about a gay boy's liberation, even setting aside the songs from/used for Closer to Heaven. Also, Wikipedia turns out to have a detailed debate over the capitalization of the songs -- I love my academic gay band!
The second half was mainly songs I love less than the ones in the first -- such as Dreaming of the Queen, over what looked like footage of Princess Diana's funeral, turning a song I always thought of as an AIDS song into a sort of more reflective Candle in the Wind. I could have skipped Home and Dry, and I'm not a huge fan of Always on My Mind/Where the Streets Have No Name, but on the latter point I think I was alone in the concert hall -- it was very popular. The encore was It's a Sin followed by Go West, which never really works for me when I'm listening alone but was awesome in a hall full of people who knew all the words. Attendance seemed about 80% male, which I think makes me an honorary fag hag.
Other highlights: I'm With Stupid, the Bush/Blair song from Blair's POV; I didn't quite know what to think when, every time they got to the chorus ("I'm with stupid") the lights swung out to the audience. Unless the famous Velvet Mafia was in attendance (which I suppose is possible), I doubt there were all that many Bush voters present. Integral, probably my favorite song from the new album, showed up in fine form. It's about national identity cards, though if you search on YouTube you will discover that several people have considered it just the right song for a Cybermen video. (Wikipedia fact: David Tennant took his stage name from Neil Tennant.)
The second half was mainly songs I love less than the ones in the first -- such as Dreaming of the Queen, over what looked like footage of Princess Diana's funeral, turning a song I always thought of as an AIDS song into a sort of more reflective Candle in the Wind. I could have skipped Home and Dry, and I'm not a huge fan of Always on My Mind/Where the Streets Have No Name, but on the latter point I think I was alone in the concert hall -- it was very popular. The encore was It's a Sin followed by Go West, which never really works for me when I'm listening alone but was awesome in a hall full of people who knew all the words. Attendance seemed about 80% male, which I think makes me an honorary fag hag.
Other highlights: I'm With Stupid, the Bush/Blair song from Blair's POV; I didn't quite know what to think when, every time they got to the chorus ("I'm with stupid") the lights swung out to the audience. Unless the famous Velvet Mafia was in attendance (which I suppose is possible), I doubt there were all that many Bush voters present. Integral, probably my favorite song from the new album, showed up in fine form. It's about national identity cards, though if you search on YouTube you will discover that several people have considered it just the right song for a Cybermen video. (Wikipedia fact: David Tennant took his stage name from Neil Tennant.)
The funniest thing about this parody is the Google ads it triggers. But I like the parody pretty well too.
I went to the Sisters of Mercy concert and got home in time to feed the baby -- a short set. Decent concert, neither the worst nor the best I've been to, with high points at Alice and Vision Thing. It's always fun to be in a packed crowd of people who know all the words. Best image of the night: the woman in front of me, in a pinstriped suit, who carefully pinned up her hair, revealing the elaborate tattoo curling around her neck and shoulders.
I just read this anecdote: Near the end of his life, Theodore Dreiser occasionally grew confused. One night he woke and searched for his wife Helen, but he didn't recognize her, and they had the following exchange:
Helen Dreiser: I am Helen.
Theodore Dreiser: Everyone thinks she's Helen.
So true, isn't it?
I went to the Sisters of Mercy concert and got home in time to feed the baby -- a short set. Decent concert, neither the worst nor the best I've been to, with high points at Alice and Vision Thing. It's always fun to be in a packed crowd of people who know all the words. Best image of the night: the woman in front of me, in a pinstriped suit, who carefully pinned up her hair, revealing the elaborate tattoo curling around her neck and shoulders.
I just read this anecdote: Near the end of his life, Theodore Dreiser occasionally grew confused. One night he woke and searched for his wife Helen, but he didn't recognize her, and they had the following exchange:
Helen Dreiser: I am Helen.
Theodore Dreiser: Everyone thinks she's Helen.
So true, isn't it?
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The Sisters of Mercy are coming to town! I must go.
ETA: Even if the club charges me money for picking up the tickets at the box office, on top of the "service charge" imposed because I saved them labor by buying through the automatic online interface. How ridiculous. (And how old and cranky I am!)
ETA: Even if the club charges me money for picking up the tickets at the box office, on top of the "service charge" imposed because I saved them labor by buying through the automatic online interface. How ridiculous. (And how old and cranky I am!)
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These podcasts are why the Internet was invented: two nice people in Urbana, Illinois, do a podcast of gothy music via local community radio each week. The one I first chose, from 2/16/2006, includes them getting a phone call midshow, but it's a phone call for another radio show and thus dealt with almost off-mic. They call themselves DJ ZoZo (Daniel) and DJ Kannibal (Kristen), and I like their taste, if not their DJ skills.
If you haven't had enough Serenity, the Big Damn Recap is for you. Some nice discussion of the movie's themes along with the recap. ( spoilers for the movie )
If you haven't had enough Serenity, the Big Damn Recap is for you. Some nice discussion of the movie's themes along with the recap. ( spoilers for the movie )
Does anyone have a copy of "Stacy's Mom" to share? I need a clip of it to compare to "Stacy's Dad" as an example of parody. "Stacy's Dad," by the way, is a fun song, and there's a bizarre fannish connection you can see at the artist's page.
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What I've been listening to: Bertine Zetlitz. Sadly, her music is essentially unavailable in the US -- I may have to send overseas if I decide I can afford it. In the meantime, her website offers some great streams, especially "Girl Like You," a poppily vicious song, and Fluxblog and Music for Robots have posted tracks. Her "For Fun" is the girl's version of Voltaire's "When You're Evil." (Which you can and should download at his site; scroll down the frame on the left.)
I won't be down in Texas for SXSW, but the festival's website offers tracks by Tegan & Sara (official website here, with mp3s of some of my favorite songs, including "My Number," and some b-sides and demos -- Buffy fans may know them from the vid "Superstar"); Crooked Fingers (as country as I'm ever going to get, which is to say I might approach city limits; their site is here, and they might've rotated the downloads recently, because I can't find my favorites "New Drink for the Old Drunk" and "Sweet Marie" -- "I know you'd never cheat with anyone but me" -- though they should be available on iTunes); Kings of Convenience (this song is just so sweet, except not -- "I'd rather dance with you than talk with you" might be my perfect Spike/Buffy song); and Aimee Mann, among others, so I benefit from its existence anyway.
I won't be down in Texas for SXSW, but the festival's website offers tracks by Tegan & Sara (official website here, with mp3s of some of my favorite songs, including "My Number," and some b-sides and demos -- Buffy fans may know them from the vid "Superstar"); Crooked Fingers (as country as I'm ever going to get, which is to say I might approach city limits; their site is here, and they might've rotated the downloads recently, because I can't find my favorites "New Drink for the Old Drunk" and "Sweet Marie" -- "I know you'd never cheat with anyone but me" -- though they should be available on iTunes); Kings of Convenience (this song is just so sweet, except not -- "I'd rather dance with you than talk with you" might be my perfect Spike/Buffy song); and Aimee Mann, among others, so I benefit from its existence anyway.
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Semisonic's "Bed." Unfortunately, I bought my copy from iTunes, so sharing it would involve complicated (and illegal!) encryption-cracking manipulations, but you should still try to find it. I like the song because of the unusual use of the verb "to bed" -- the demand is just as blatant as "I want your sex," yet also erotically charged by the almost archaic form used. If you reformulate the message as "sleep with me or I'll find someone else who will," it's a lot less attractive, but as is I really enjoy it. (It doesn't hurt that "Well show me a friendship that's pure and chaste/And I'll show you an engine that's dying to race" makes me think of Lex, of course.)
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So, one of my pet peeves is that bumper sticker that says, “School’s open -- Drive carefully.” At 11 at night, that’s not true; it’s like having a bumper sticker that proudly proclaims, “It’s 9 am!” Not to mention the inherent ridiculousness of such an exhortation. Thus, ![[livejournal.com profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
misterrivkat got me a T-shirt, sadly not a bumper sticker, that says this. It’s from Ben's Ironic Iron-On T-Shirt Factory.
( variations on a lyrics meme )
misterrivkat got me a T-shirt, sadly not a bumper sticker, that says this. It’s from Ben's Ironic Iron-On T-Shirt Factory.( variations on a lyrics meme )
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