Tue
Dec
22
tomewing:
Hold on, TATU’s third English-language album came out LAST WEEK? And I had no idea? Despite both their other ones being AMAZING?
I can consider myself a failure as both critic and Internet perv :(
I checked this out, too — it’s just their previously mostly-Russian release from ‘07/’08 (“Happy Smiles”) with a few new tracks, not really their best work for the most part.
I was more surprised that there are new SCOOTER and FLYLEAF albums that I did not know existed!!! But I tried to listen to them while pain meds for wisdom teeth surgery kicked in (sloooowly) and had to turn both off after about 30 seconds for fear of dying of the ol’ head-caving-in.
The Tumblr “Um, no.” in which I document every time someone on the internet uses the phrase “Um, no.” as its own sentence. It would encompass:
—Paul Krugman responding to the assertion that warnings about housing bubble crashes in California in the 90’s were false, hence not predictive of larger future collapses (like the one that actually happened).
— AJ Michalka, denying that humans could have descended from monkeys. (“Monkeys? Um, no.”)
— A presumably in-joking ohnotheydidnt responding to Aly and AJ’s rechristened band 78violet.
— Some gossip columnist, responding to this outfit that Leighton Meester wore once.
— Response to the news that Eddie Murphy might play the Riddler in the next Nolan Batman movie.
— On the prospect of Meg Whitman being elected governor of California.
But will I follow through on this plan? Um, no.
Can we please announce a moratorium on the “parents’ basement” epithet for bloggers? It’s so MODEM.
The Blogger Problem (to the extent there is one — I’d argue we have a much much bigger Journalism Problem to worry about as far as public writing goes, but hey) is a confluence of poor reasoning and researching skills, shoddy analysis, and basic lack of reading comprehension — bad thinking and bad writing. Not only is it nothing new, it’s nothing that has anything to do with a basement (or the related assumption that one must fritter away a potentially meaningful existence to “upload” to the internet a la some dystopic 90’s fantasy — my guess is that most self- or otherwise-designated “bloggers” are middle-class and employed).
If blogs do have a built-in problematic feature, it’s perhaps that they encourage one to write first and think (harder) later. Thing is, this is a perfectly fine way to operate — one that I encourage since it at least gets ideas out into the ether faster than more formal venues — but only provided that one actually does think later. This has long been my issue with blogs without comment boxes (and, to some extent, the constant stream of posts from a Tumblr or RSS format); there’s little incentive to continue a conversation past its initial, sometimes visceral (“thumbs up”) moment of engagement.
Are there any studies on how internet reading might differ in terms of retention from non-internet reading? My guess is that we tend to remember less of what we read online than what we read from non-online sources, but this is just a hunch from my personal reading experience. <—irony of ending post about poor researching/comprehension skills with question that projects from individual experience without bothering to actually look something up noted.
Sun
Dec
20
…Is a bit like watching Oliver Stone’s W. — you feel like there’s something missing here, the experience is more meta than meat. When I saw that film in the theater, there was some experiential value, but the film itself rang hollow, like a cartoon (and a toothless one at that). I was focusing more on the act of watching it itself than what was actually happening — the little voice in my head going “TOO SOON” was part of the show.
Why don’t we take the end of this decade, if we’re going to use a deadline for something, to evaluate the previous decade with appropriate hindsight?
Thu
Dec
17
From the latest installment of “Me: The Decade” (The college years! 2003: Cooler Kids):
Me: The weirder aspect of [making a “child-appropriate mix”] was determining appropriateness of songs based on lyrical context that no one else might get — there’s a drug reference in “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell” (I rolled a lotta L’s) and it’s pretty obviously about two stoners, but I didn’t think that my students would “get” it (and really that track was more for the teachers).
Girlboymusic: Consequence of spending the first seven years of my life in Queens with a father who is a train enthusiast: for the longest time I thought he was saying, “I rode a lotta els” (as in the elevated subway line that runs over Jamaica Avenue).
Frank: That’s what I thought he was saying, too.
Me: Well, that certainly makes it more acceptable. And a “teachable moment,” starring the MTA! (But I think they’re referring to smoking blunts.) Of course, if they’re coming from Brooklyn, they might be riding an L AND an el, which would indeed be a lotta L’s.
